REMARKS 


ON  THE 


SUBJECT  OF  THE  OWNERSHIP  OE  SLAVES, 


DELIVERED  BY 


11.  R.  COLLIER  OF  PETERSBURG, 


IN  THE 


SENATE  OF  VIRGINIA, 


OCTOBER  12,  1863. 


RICHMOND: 

PRINTED  BY  JAMES  E.  GOODE,  180  MAIN  ST. 

1863. 


•  » 


Extract  from  Va.  Senate  Journal,  October  3,  1863,  pp.  90—91. 


*  * 


Mr.  Collier  submitted  the  following  preamble  and  joint  resolution : 
The  general  assembly  of  Virginia  doth  hereby  declare,  that  negroes 
in  slavery  in  this  state  and  in  the   whole   south,  (who  are  withal  m  a 
higher  condition  of  civilization  than  any  of  their   race   has  ever  been 
elsewhere),  having  been  a  property  in  their  masters  for  two  hundred  and 
forty  years,  by  use   and  custom  at  first,  and  ever  since  by  recognitions 
of  the  public  law  in  various  forms,  ought   not  to  be,  and  cannot  justly 
be,  interfered  with  in  that  relation  of  property  by  the  state,  neither  by 
the  people  in  convention  assembled  to  alter  an  existing  constitution  or  to 
form  one  for  admission  into  the  Confederacy,  nor  by  the  representatives 
of  the  people   in  the  state   or  the   confederate  legislature,  nor  by  any 
means  or  mode  which  the  popular  majority  might  adopt ;  and  that  the 
state,  whilst  remaining  republican  in  the  structure  of  its  government, 
can  be  lawfully  got  rid  of  that  species  of  property,  if  ever,  only  by  the 
free   consent  of  the   individual   owners  ;  it   being  true  as  the   general 
assembly  doth  further  declare,  that  for  the  state,  without  the  free  con- 
sent of  the   owner,  to   deprive  him  of  his  identical  property,  by  com- 
pelling him  to  accept  a  substituted  value  therefor,  no  matter  how  ascer- 
tained, or  by  the  post  nati  policy,  or  in  any  other  way,  not  tor  the  pub- 
lic use,  but  with  a  view  to  rid  the  state  of  such  'property  already  resi- 
dent therein,  and  so  to  destroy  the  right  of  property  m  the  subject,  or 
to  constrain  the  owner  to  send  his  slaves  out  of  the  state,  or  else  to  ex- 
patriate himself  and  carry  them  with  him,  would   contravene  and  frus- 
trate the  indispensable    principles   of  free   government:  and  whereas 
these  Confederate  States,  being  now  all  slaveholdmg,  may  be  disturbed 
by  some  act  of  the  majority,  in  any  one  of  them,  in  derogation   of  the 
rights  of  the  minority,  unless  this  doctrine  above  declared  be  interposed: 

therefore 

Resolved  by  the  general  assembly  of  Virginia,  That  the  governor  of 
Virginia  be,  and  he  is,  hereby  requested  to  communicate  this  proceeding 
to  the  several  governors  of  the  Confederate  States,  and  to  request  them 
to  lay  the  same  before  their  respective  legislatures,  and  to  request  then- 
concurrence  therein  in  such  way  as  they  may  severally  deem  best  calcu- 
lated to  secure  stability  to  the  fundamental  doctrine  of  southern  civiliza- 
tion which  is  hereby  declared  and  proposed  to  be  advanced. 


m 


REMARKS 

BY  R.  R.  COLLIER  OF  PETERSBURG, 

DELIVERED  IN  SUPPORT  OF  THE  PREFIXED  PREAMBLE  AND  RESOLUTION. 


Mr.  Collier  Baid  the  senate  could  not  fail  to  see  and  know  that  the 
recognition  of  our  independence  by  foreign  countries,  is  made  to  turn 
on  a  question  of  the  continued  existence  of  negro  slavery  in  these 
states.  He  judged  it  to  be  both  just  to  other  nations,  and  prudent  on 
our  own  part,  to  declare  unequivocally,  if  such  is  indeed  our  purpose, 
that  these  BtaJtes  do  not  intend  to  let  the  condition  of  the  black  man 
amongst  us  be  changed.  He  would  have  the  emperor  of  the  French  and 
all  other  crowned  heads  know  that  these  Confederate  States  will  not  ac- 
cept, much  le-s  seek,  recognition  of  their  independence  on  the  basis  of 
any  manner  of  compromise,  to  any  extent,  on  this  subject.  He  would 
Bay  to  one  and  all,  in  this  great  interest,  we  do  and  will  insist  strenuously 
on  being  let  alone  to  manage  it  in  our  own  way. 

Mr.  Collier  Baid  he* would  anticipate  the  discussion  he  intended,  by 
inviting  attention  at  once  to  one  point  involved.  The  chief  object  of 
the  declaration  of  principles  and  policies  which  he  proposed,  was  to  dis- 
avow and  oppose  the  signal  fallacy  which  has  prevailed,  that  the  people 
•of  a  republican  state  can,  without  violating  the  republican  creed,  either 
destroy  any  existing  property  or  fail  to  protect  it  to  its  owners.  In  the 
politics  of  the  country,  for  ten  years,  at  least,  prior  to  the  dismember- 
ment of  the  federal  Union,  the  fallacy  was  sedulously  inculcated,  by  all 
parties,  that  a  people  intending  to  establish  B  republican  state,  might,  in 
first  forming  or  in  afterwards  altering  their  constitution,  determine  by 
constitutional  provision  or  authorized  legislation,  whether  slavery  should 
tontinu  to  exist  within  the  limits  of  the  state.  That  doctrine  is  not 
onlv  unsound,  but  it  is  an  imitation  to  all  mankind  to  enter  the  field  of 
competition  for  free  to  the  exclusion  of  slave  labor.  To  get  rid  of  that 
heresy  is  the  prime  object  of  the  proposed  proceeding. 

With  that  much,  only,  premised.  I  will  proceed.  .Mr.  President  and  scna- 
t  »rg,  at  this  time,  to  submit  for  your  consideration,  a  succinct  exposition 
of  trie  grounds  on  which  the  main  doctrine  designed  by  tne  preamble  to 
be  advanced  in  its  power  on  the  public  mind — on  the  moral  sentiment,. 
no  less  than  on  the  intellectual  judgment,  of  the  people  of  these  slave- 
holding  states — should  find  its  sure  support,  and  quietly  repose.  It 
shall  b  ■  as  succinet  as  the  amplitude  of  the  subject  will  allow.  That 
main  doctrine  is  that   negro  slaves  are   property,  and  as  such,  just  as 


much  as  any  other  property,  is  shut  up  and  shielded  to  the  owners  of 
them,  so  that  the  enjoyment  of  this  identical  property  cannot  be  dis- 
turbed, except  in  the  way  and  for  the  purposes  ascertained  by  and  de- 
fined in  the  provisions  of  our  written  constitutions ;  and  that  those  con- 
stitutional provisions  have  their  source  and  their  shield  in  the  republican 
creed  which  is  no  less  the  best  supply  of  durable  prosperity,  than  of 
public  freedom.  To  dispense  with  or  to  repudiate  those  provisions  which 
are  limitations  for  the  security  of  protection  to  minorities,  alike  and  no 
less  by  constraint  of  principles  on  the  majority  in  making  constitutions, 
than  on  the  governmental  authorities  in  administering  them,  would  be  to 
convert  a  free  system  into  some  other  not  free,  but  arbitrary. 

I  shall  deem  it  unnecessary  to  cite  the  adjudications  of  the  federal  or 
state  courts  to  show  that  negroes  in  bondage  are  a  property  to  their 
owners  :  that  was  sufficiently  and  Well  done  by  Hon.  W.  N.  H.  Smith  of 
North  Carolina,  in  the  federal  house  of  representatives,  and  who  is  now 
a  member  of  the  confederate  house.  As  indicating  with  sufficient  dis- 
tinctness what  kind  of  property  in  slaves  it  is  I  assert,  this  question 
will  suffice — Has  not  the  master  a  property  in  his  apprentice  ?  The 
chief  difference  is  that  it  is  for  a  limited  time  in  one,  but  for  life  in  the 
other. 

I  shall  deem  it  unnecessary  to  take  a  retrospect  of  negro  slavery,  or 
to  survey  its  favored  condition,  in  this  country,  as  contrasted  with  others, 
but  a  little  beyond  the  allusions  in  the  preamble.  The  purpose  of  the 
proposed  proceeding,  is  not  to  impress  such  facts,  well  known  to  us,  any 
more  unerrably  and  ineradicably  than  they  are  on  us  and  by  us  already 
jmpressed  to  be  appreciated.  Nor  is  it  the  purpose  to  attempt  to  reach 
the  outside  world.  To  them  I  would  only  say  that  with  us  the  black 
slave  is  subjected  to  very  little  of  the  severity,  and  enjoys  all  the  ad- 
vantages, of  servitude.  I  would  have  them  know  that  ours  is  the  severe 
design  of  Napoleon,  when  in  1802  he  said,  "  Had  any  of  your  philan- 
thropic liberals  come  out  to  Egypt  to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  blacks,  I 
would  have  hung  him  from  the  masthead."  I  would  invite  them  to  search 
the  history  of  the  black  race.  I  would  have  them  consider  how,  for 
six  thousand  years,  that  race  has  failei  to  erect  a  single  fabric  of  civilized 
freedom,  though  Central  Africa  was-  in  the  national  neighborhood  of 
Egyptian  and  Carthaginian  greatness.  All  the  aids  of  the  white  man 
have  failed  to  enable  the  blacks  to  produce  or  preserve  civilization.  No 
respectable  state  has  risen  in  that  fruitful  region  on  the  banks  of  the 
Niger  or  the  Congo.  Survey  the  contrast  on  the  Euphrates  and  the 
Nile.  Remember  how,  in  half  a  century,  the  flourishing  aspect  and 
agricultural  opulence  of  St.  Domingo  disappeared  and  left  not  a  vestige 
of  enterprize  or  industry.  Behold  the  present  condition  of  the  Haytien 
republic,  relapsed  into  the  indolence  and  gloom  of  savage  life.  With 
that  much  to  all  outsiders,  and  having  no  other  design  with  them,  the 
purpose  of  the  proceeding  I  am  urging  on  the  adoption  of  our  whole 
country,  is  to  shove  off  and  to  shut  out  domestic  interference,  so  that  the 
principle  of  property  in  respect  to  our  slaves,  shall  have  full  practical 
effect  and  fruition.  There  are  in  the  matters  closely  grouped  in  the 
preamble,  a  few  salient  angles  where  I  wish  to  plant  a  palisade,  before 
I  proceed  with  the  more  general  inspection  and  fortification. 


It  is  not  within  the  range  of  my  intended  view,  to  revive  a  discussion 
of  "the  territorial  question,"  which  was  as  changeful  as  the  moon,  and 
had  many  moonstruck  worshippers.  There  is,  however,  one  remark 
looking  in  that  direction,  which  I  think  will  he  by  others  thought  to  be 
not  altogether  inappropriate.  I  consider  it  very  pertinent  to  our  present 
situation.  It  was  conceded  by  the  South,  in  that  discussion,  that  when 
a  territorial  people  came  to  form  a  state  constitution  for  admission  into 
the  federal  Union,  they  might  have  provided  for  the  expulsion  of  the 
negro  slavery  then  and  there  existing.  Such  was  the  concession  by 
Governor  Wise  in  his  celebrated  Samford  letter.  He  defended  with 
masterly  ability  our  right  of  property  in  our  slaves,  and  he  fortified  that 
defence  both  by  constitutional  analysis  and  historical  research  blended 
in  powerful  array.  He  gave,  however,  unjustified  scope  to  the  consti- 
tutional clause  respecting  "  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens  in 
the  several  states,"  which  by  fair  interpretation,  in  the  light  of  its  his- 
tory, applies  only  to  the  right  of  the  individual's  citizenship  in  the  states. 
Yet  he  did  make  that  concession,  and  it  was  fatal  to  his  argument,  and 
made  it  worth  but  little  to  the  Smth.  The  same  concession  was  insisted 
on  in  the  memorable  debate  on  the  Beven  resolutions  of  Senator  (now 
president)  Davis,  just  before  he  retired  from  the  United  States  senate. 
He  gave  up  the  principle  of  property  in  our-  slaves,  at  the  point  of  its 
greatest  danger.  He  left  it  exposed- to  the  fury  of  the  dominant  ma- 
jority, when  the  people  are  first  forming  or  afterwards  altering  their 
constitution.  lie  surrendered  1 1 1 i -  stronghold  of  republican  government 
in  the  Oth  of  that  series  of  resolutions.  It  was  adopted  by  a  vote  of 
33  to  12;  most  of  the  northern  senators  voting  for  it,  as  all  of  them 
might.     It  was  in  these  words : 

"6th  Resolved,  That  the  inhabitants  of  a  territory  of  the  United 
States,  when  thev  rightfully  form  a  constitution  to  be  admitted  as  a 
stat.-  into  ih-  Union,  may  then,   for  the  first   time,    like    the  people  of  a 

state  when  forming  a  new  constitution,  decide  for  themselves,  whether 

slavery,    afl   a  domestic   institution,    shall   he  maintained   or   prohibited 
within  their  jurisdiction,"  &o 

The  surrender  involved,  which  now  concerns  us  as  ^laveholding  states, 
is  the  conces.-imi  that  •■  the  people  of  a  state  when  forming  a  new  con- 
stitution." may  ex., el  Blavery.  That  doctrine  should  be  killed  and  buried 
out  of  sight.  It  is  a  -tench  in  the  nostrils  of  slaveholders,  f  deny, 
but  will  only  remark  to  defend  the  denial,  that  slavery  is  not  an  institu- 
tion ;  it  is  the  ownership  of  the  individual  citizens.  '  If  it  were  an  in- 
stitute of  government,  then  the  government  might  rightfully  in  point  of 
mere  power,  either  alter  or  abolish  it  at  pleasure.  Such 'is  the  clear 
consequence  from  the  concession  that  the  ownership  is  an  institution: 
and  st ill,  as  soon  as  yankee  cunning  suggested  that  the  ownership  was 
an  "institution,"  the  southern  mind  accepted  the  nomenclature  as  cor- 
rect, and  at  once  became  burthened  with  the  logical  sequence  of  a  power 
in  the  government  to  control  it  to  the  extent  of  removing  it.  Ever 
since  the  concession  was  made  forty  years  ago,  the  South  has  had  to 
combat  the  consequence,  whilst  all  'the  weary  time,  she  h.s  been  sus- 
taining the  cause,  and  as  it  were  begging  the  question.  ..Let  us  ignore 
the  concession  which   is   the  cause,  and   the  consequence  wjvj  cease  to 

r      g8* 
M 


1 

result.  Let  us  henceforth  cease  to  concede  that  it  is  an  institution,  as 
it  is  not.  That  ownership  existed  before  the  state  was  formed,  and  the 
people  of  the  state  in  first  making  or  afterwards  in  altering  their  organic 
law,  owe  it  that  protection  to  which  they  are  incontestably  constrained 
by  the  principles  of  free  government,  which  chiefly  consist  in  the  pro- 
tection of  property  to  its  owners — all  their  property,  except  enough  for 
the  general  charge  and  expenditure  and  for  the  public  use.  That  much 
only  can  be  taken  away  by  the  powers  of  taxation  and  impressment,  and 
only  to  the  exact 'extent  the  inevitable  necessities  of  the  government 
may  demand. ' 

The  sound  opinion — the  logical  conclusion — the  view  of  the  subject 
which  I  had  been  urging  for  five  years  prior  to  the  debate  in  the  senate 
on  the  resolutions  of  the  senator  from  Mississippi,  in  May  1860,  was  in 
that  debate  expressed  by  Senator  (not  then  traitor)  Crittenden,  as  fol- 
lows:  "To  assert  my  right,"  said  Mr.  C,  "  to  go  there" — anywhere 
in  this  republican  country — "  to  carry  my  property  there,  and  to  enjoy 
that  property,  and  then  to  say  there  is  any  body  stronger  or  mightier  or 
more  sovereign  than  the  constitution" — and  I  say  than  the  principle  of 
property — "  that  can  take  from  me  that  which  the  constitution" — and  I 
say  its  indispensable  principle — "  says  I  may  have  and  enjoy,  or  can 
expel  me  from  the  place  where  the  constitution  allows  me  to  go,  is  ex- 
ceedingly inconsistent  and  contradictory."  So  said  Senator  Crittenden, 
when  he  was  a  true  man. 

So  much,  Mr.  President,  I  have  thought  it  proper  to  present  on  this 
topic.  I  forbear  just  now  to  say  any  more  in  the  support  of  my  view  of 
it,  except  only  the  historical  allusion  in  the  remark  that  the  concession 
so  made  by  the  South  and  sanctioned  by  her  foremost  defenders,  was  not 
less  prejudicial  and  detrimental  to  the  extension  of  slavery  and  the  en- 
largement of  "  the  slave  power"  of  the  South  in  the  federal  Union,  than 
to  the  existence  and  security  of  slavery  in  the  states,  was  the  denial  in 
that  congress  that  negroes  were  property — a  denial  in  which  they,  of 
course,  became  more  eager,  when  they  found  we  did  not  resist  it  as  men 
in  earnest  to  maintain  their  rights  should  have  resisted  it — a  denial  there 
first  made  in  1817,  and  once  or  twice  thereafter  repeated,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  slave-owners  seeking  by  memorials  to  be  paid  for  their  slaves 
which  were  injured  or  lost  to  them,  in  Louisiana,  in  the  war  of  1812—15, 
when  their  slaves  were  impressed  by  the  authority  of  the  general  gov- 
ernment, chiefly  to  supply  labor  in  the  erection  of  fortifications  at  New 
Orleans.  That  was  the  only  instance,  until  the  war  we  are  in  now,  in 
which  that  government  ever  repudiated  tfye  principle  of  property  in 
negro  slaves,  (although  some  of  the  co-states  did,)  and  then  the  South 
ought  to  have  insisted  on  reparation  and  redress,  or  a  dismemberment  of 
that  Union. 

At  this  other  point  I  wish  to  put  up  a  defensive  fortification.  It  is 
this,  that  the  proposed  proceeding  neither  in  terms  nor  by  intention 
trenches  on  the  -rightful  powers  of  all  governments  to  impress  private 
property  for  "the  public  use."  I  particularly  invite  the  attention  of 
the  senate,  (and  of  the  country,  in  case  the  general  assembly  shall  send 
out  the  proceeding  to  this  and  the  other  states,)  to-  that  part  of  the  pre- 
amble in  which  various  plans  of  emancipation  or  riddance,  and  the  only 


8 

ones  ihat  have  ever  been  proposed  as  peaceful  resorts,  are  reprobated. 
The  almost  unanimous  expression  of  the  -world's  condemnation,  and  our 
undivided  detestation,  of  Lincoln's  plan,  is  enough  to  repel  that  impetu- 
ous and  impudent  plan  for  accomplishing  the  object  by  military  conquest. 
History  has  no  blacker  deed  to  commemorate.  I  thus  direct  attention 
to  the  end  it  may  be  seen  and  considered  that  the  plans  denounced  are 
such  as  are  not  for  "the  public  use"  in  their  ex-appropriation  of  private 
property.  This  proceeding  intends  in  the  expression,  and  craves  in  the 
discussion,  to  avoid  and  escape  the  vortex  of  the  vexed  questions  in- 
volved in  the  power  of  impressment  of  private  property  "for  public  use," 
and  in  the  modes  of  the  exercise  of  that  power.  It  desires,  as  its  terms 
expressly  intend,  to  avoid  that  gulf-stream  in  the  confluence  of  politics 
and  legislation. 

The  other  angle  at  which  some  special  defence  may,  I  apprehend,  be 
properly  made,  is  about  the  post  nati  policy.  It  is  a  legal  maxim  that 
the  owner  of  any  female  animal  is  entitled  to  her  increase,  et  alios  qui  nas- 
■■'  liter  ab  illis.  Neither  authority  needs  be  quoted  nor  argument  urged  on 
this  head.  It  is  referred  to  for  the  purpose  of  making  another  kind  of 
defence — a  counterguard. 

[t  is  known  to  the  senate  that  it  has  been  alleged  elsewhere,  audit 
may  1.  •  BupposeVl  by  some  here,  that  Mr.  Jefferson  urged  the  execution 
of  that  policy,  it  is  admitted  by  me  that  he  was  "a  philanthropic  lib- 
eral" in  his  philosophic  meditations  on  this  Bubject :  but  1  am  yet  to  find 
that  he  advocated  the  execution  of  this  policy,  under  our  written  con- 
stitutions, as  they  then  were  and  now  arc  and  as  I  think  they  must  ever 
be,  whilst  we  are  a  free  people,  enjoying  the  republican  creed.  In  his 
celebrated  letter  to  Jared  Sparks,  in  18z4,  (Jefferson's  works,  vol.  4th, 
paLr>'  388,)  Mr.  J.  says,  in  parenthesis,  "actual  property  has  been  law- 
fully vested  in  that  form,  ami  who  can  lawfully  take  it  from  the  posses- 
sors?"  Iii  the  same  letter,  suggesting  what  he  could  in  support  of  this 
policy,  lie  says:  "I  am  aware  that  this  subject  involves  some  constitu- 
tional scruples.  But  a  liberal  construction,  justified  by  the  object,  may 
go  far,  ami  an  amendment  of  tie-  constitution,  the  whole  length  neces- 
sary." Thus,  whilst  he  advocated  the  abstract  policy,  he  conceded  it 
could  not  be  executed  under  the  constitution  as  it  then  was.  The  pro- 
posed proceeding  denies  that  the  policy  can  be  executed  under  the  con- 
stitution as-it  still  is;  and  it  as-erts  in  the  spirit  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  ques- 
tion, that  the  increase  of  the  female  slaves  are  a  vested  property  of 
which  no  earthly  power  can  rightfully  divest  the  lawful  possessors.  I 
admit  he  had  a  de-ire  at  heart  to  have  the  policy  executed,'  if  it  could 
have  been  done  consistently  with  the  constitution,  or  if  the  constitution 
could  have  been  made  to  compass  the  object  consistently  with  republican- 
ism. He  did  not  tell  us  how  (because  he  did  not  see)  it  could  be  done 
without  subverting  the  principle  of  property  and  undermining  our  free 
system..  I  dissent  from  his  heart's  desire,  and  so  do  these  slavcholding 
states  solemnly  protest,  unless  they  are  justly  chargeable  with  hypocrisy. 
These  states  do  adhere,  and  I  do  not  doubt  they  will  express  their  devotion, 
to  the  sounder  philanthrophy  and  clearer  wisdom  of  Napoleon,  as  ut- 
tered in  1802,  when  he  said:  "In  the  West  Indies,  enthusiasts  have  de- 
livered over  the  whites  to  the  ferocity  of  the  blacks,  and  yet  they  com- 


9 

plain  of  the  victims  of  such  madness,  that  they  are  discontented.  How 
give  liberty  to  the  Africans,  when  they  are  destitute  of  any  species  of 
civilization.  *  *  *  The  feelings  of  humanity  are  ever  powerful 
with  excited  imaginations.  But  now  after  the  experience. we  have  had, 
to  maintain  the  same  policy  can  be  the  result  only  of  overweening. self- 
confidence  or  hypocrisy."  And  I  am  justified  in  appealing  to  the  wis- 
dom of  that  great  man,  because  in  his  civil  code  he  showed  himself  to 
be  a  Solon  legislating  for  a  distracted  people,  and  a  Justinian  codifying 
the  treasures,  of  all  existing  and  foregone  jurisprudence.  I  will  only 
add  on  this  head,  that  though  negroes  with  us  are  in  a  higher  state  of 
civilization,  they  are  still  unfit  for  self-government,  if  indeed  by  any 
culture  they  are  capable  of  being  made  fit  for  it ;  that  by  color  they  are 
unfit  to  mingle  with  the  whites  as  equals  ;  that  Providence  has  not  opened 
the  way  for  their  deportation,  and  if  He  had,  this  war  has  very  largely 
reduced,  our  means  to  accomplish  it  for  a  century  to  come.  To  set  them 
free  and  not  send  them  away,  would  be  grosser  error  than  it  would  have 
been  in  the  Carthaginians  to  have  suffered  the  Romans  to  fortify  on 
their  shore,  or  in  the  English  to  have  allowed  the  French  to  entrench  on 
the  coast  of  Kent.  Though  the  negroes  would  not  be  as  formidable 
warriors,  they  would  be,  perhaps,  as  thievish  as  the  outlandish  soldiers 
of  the  yankee  armies  in  this  war. 

Mr.  President,  with  that  limited  defence  of  those  points  on  which  it 
occurred  to  me  attacks  might  be  made  from  misapprehension,  I  come 
now  to  explain,  fortify  and  defend,  if  I  may  be  fortunate  to  do  so,  the 
more  general  ground  plot  of  the  proposed  proceeding.  There  can  cer- 
tainly be  no  doubt  that  it  is  appropriate,  if  the  preamble  shall  be 
adopted  by  this  general  assembly,  that  we  shall  invite  the  concurrence 
of  the  other  states.  The  manner  in  which  they  may  elect  to  concur, 
is  purposely  left  unadvised  and  unsuggested.  Whilst  it  is  not  proposed 
or  left  to  be  fairly  implied,  that  no  state  shall  be  admitted  into  the  Con- 
federacy that  is  not  slaveholding,  the  notion  is  positively  excluded  that 
any  one  of  the  states  nowT  in  the  Confederacy,  or  that  any  one  being 
slaveholding  that  may  hereafter  be  admitted,  shall  ever  be  made  non- 
slaveholding  by  any  means  other  than  by  the  "  free  consent  of  the  indi- 
vidual owners."  That  is  not  a  declaration  that  a  state  non-slaveholding 
may  not  of  right  prohibit  the  introduction  of  slaves,  nor  is  it  a  denial 
that  a  slaveholding  state  may  prohibit  the  introduction  of  any  more 
slaves  than  are  already  owned  in  it.  It  is  conceded  that  it  was  not  the 
duty  of  the  late  federal  Union  to  deny  admission  of  a  state  from  the 
territorial  condition,  because  the  constitution  under  which  they  applied 
for  admission,  inhibited  the  migration  or  importation  of  more*  persons  of 
color,  the  same  with  those  who  were 'there,  to  become,  or  continue  to  be, 
slaves  of  African  nativity  or  descent.  That  is  a  rightful  power,  sponta- 
neous and  inherent,  in  every  independent  state  or  people  on  earth,  if  it 
be'  not  abnegated"  by  the  organism  of  the  state,  or  by  treaty  stipula- 
tion ;  and  the  one  would  be  unwise,  the  other  humiliating.  It  is  a. 
power  which  the  people  of  the  states  by  severally  ratifying  the  federal 
constitution  and  so  forming  the  late  federal  Union,  did  not  relinquish. 
If  they  did,  by  what  clause  was  it  done ?  •  It  is  a  right  that  was  reser- 
ved to  each  state,  I  apprehend,  unimpaired  by  any  clause  in  that  con- 
2 


10 

stitution,  except  by  that  one  which  reduced  the  powor  of  the  general 
government  to  execute  or  iuitiate  such  a  prohibition,  prior  to  1808,  in 
the  states  then  in  the  Union,  or  to  come  in  before  that  period.  Whether 
the  foreign  slave  trade  was  prohibited  by  the  clause  to  regulate  com- 
merce with  foreign  nations,  or  by  that  to  define  offences  against  the  law 
of  nations,  or  by  any  other,  or  was  not  prohibited  at  all  by  express 
grant  or  by  necessary  implication  in  any  grant,  it  was  never  material  to 
determine  or  to  consider.  If  the  power  was-  not  so  granted,  it  never- 
theless existed  in  the  federal  Union  after  it  was  formed,  in  virtue  of  the 
international  principle  that  each  nation  has  the  right  to  regulate  its  for- 
eign policy,  whilst  unrestricted  by  treaty  or  oy  self-imposed  stipulations. 
If  it  was  granted,  the  grant  was  cumulative  only,  for  it  would  have  existed 
as  an  element  of  an  independent  nation,  without  the  grant.  If  it  was  not 
granted  and  did  not  exist  inherently  in  nationality,  then  the  framers  of 
that  constitution  are  exhibited  in  the  ridiculous  aspect  of  having  re- 
stricted for  a  time,  up  to  1808,  the  exercise  of  the  power  to  prohibit, 
when  they  did  not  possess  the  power.  It  has  always  seemed  tome  to  be 
most  respectful  to  the  framers  of  that  constitution,  and  only  just  to  all 
the  parties  to  it,  to  suppose,  and  so  to  interpret  it,  that  in  the  contem- 
plation of  the  framers  of  it,  as  it  did  not  clearly  contain  a  grant  of 
power  to  prohibit  the  slave  trade,  the  power  existed  without  the  grant. 
In  this  sovereign  power,  inherent  in  and  accorded  to  every  independent 
nation,  did  reside  unquestionably,  I  apprehend,  the  right  of  the  old 
Union  to  prohibit  the  foreign  slave  trade.  It  was  precisely  the  same 
power,  as  it  was  not  prohibited  to  the  states  by  the  federal  constitution, 
which  each  state  nad,  to  keep  out  of  its  limits  such  persons  as  a  prop- 
erty, as  well  as  it  might  have  kept  out  every  other  kind  of  property 
which  its  citizens  did  not  already  possess  there  as  a  property  entitled  to 
the  protection  of  law.  In  the  .-mllicicncy  of  the  strength  of  that  na- 
tional power  and  international  right  of  the  federal  government,  irre- 
spectively of  any  express  or  implied  constitutional  authority,  together 
with  the  reserved  right  of  each  state  to  prohibit  the  introduction  of  any 
slaves  or  a  larger  number,  the  "free"  States  need  not  have  had,  as  some 
of  their  politicians  professed  to  have,  a  fear  that  if  they  tolerated 
slavery  in  the  incoming  state-,  it  might  be  introduced  into  the  "free" 
states.  In  the  strength  of  the  same  principle  of  property  and  of  that 
forbearing  policy  of  the  nations,  the  slaveholding  states  in  the  federal 
Union,  were  frep  from  any  rightful  interference  by  that  government  with 
the  inter-states  slave  trade.  The  point  thus  explained  is  that  the  doc- 
trine inculcated  by  the  proposed  proceeding,  and  which  point  as  a  po- 
litical tenet,  denies  the  power  to  the  people  of  the  state — any  of  the 
slaveholding  states,  by  any  legislation,  conventional  in  forming  the  organ- 
ic law,  or  by  the  ordinary  legislature  in  giving  practical  effect  to  the 
organic  law,  to  expel  pre-existing  slave  property,  or  to  compel  its  own- 
ers to  retire  with  it  beyond  the  limits  of  the  state,  has  not  the^emerity 
or  novelty  of  coming  in  conflict  with  that  sublime  policy  of  the  civilized 
nations  that  each  for  itself,  none  for  another,  shall  regulate  its  foreign 
relations  involving  its  internal  policy,  unhindered  by  any  other  or  by  all 
others  combined.  I  have  always  thought  that  such  was  the  reserved 
right  of  each  of  the  late  United  States,  and  certainly  it  is  so  in  these 
Confederate  States. 


11 

But,  Mr.  President,  that  is  the  right  of  an  independent  isolated  state — 
that  is,  a  state  untrammeled  by  any  compact  or  treaty  with  any  other. 
It  is  not  the  right  of  a  state  in  the  act  of  being  formed  out  of  terri- 
tory belonging  in  common  to  states  already  in  a  federal  Union,  under  a 
compact  ratified  by  them.  The  federal  compact  was  supreme  over  the 
settlers  of  such  territory,  and  in  our  system  it  was  obligatory  upon 
them,  to  the  extent  and  intendment  that  they  who  inhabited  the  terri- 
tory should  establish  the  republican  system.  That  was  the  federal  guar- 
antee to  the  territorial  people.  That  was  the  idea,  and  not  that  the  con- 
stitution of  the  federal  Union  carried  slavery  into  the  territories,  be- 
yond the  power  of  the  people  to  control  it,  as  they  might  control  other 
property.  The  owners  of  the  slaves,  having  equal  privileges  of  citizen- 
ship with  the  owners  of  other  proper-ty  from  any  other  states,  carried 
them  there,  and  the  republican  principle  protected  the  ownership  of  that 
property,  equally  with  that  of  any  other  property — no  more  or  less ; 
and  the  inference  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  the  discussion  with  Mr.  Douglas, 
that  if  the  constitution  carried  slavery  into  the  territories,  it  also  might 
carry  it  into  the  free  states,  was  an  absurdity,  though  it  was  so  put,  and 
not  exposed,  as  to  deceive  thousands. 

It  is  further  claimed,  Mr.,  president,  and  I  ask  the  senate  to  consider 
it  so,  that  the  individual  citizens  of  every  state,  who  are  slaveholders 
within  its  borders  lawfully,  are  protected  by  the  same  principles  against 
all  the  governments,  foreign,  federal,  confederate  and  state,  so  as  that 
their  property  shall  not  be  interfered  with,  beyond  constitutional  exer- 
cises of  the  power  of  taxation,  for  the  defined  purposes,  and  of  that 
other  still  more  delicate  power  of  impressment,  regulated  by  law,  "for 
the  public  use."  This  tenet,  reposes  in  the  negative  of  the  proposition 
that  the  people  have  surrendered  to  their  state -government  the  original 
right  of  property  which  was  in  the  individual  owners  before  they  became 
an  organized  state.  It  exfects,  by  its  philosophy  and  its  logic,  that  a 
state  in  remodeling  its  constitution  on  the  republican  standard,  has  no 
more  power  to  expel  any  species  of  property,  than  the  people  had  to  do 
that  odious  act  when  they  first  formed  the  republican  state.  It  holds 
that  such  right  is  not  given  up,  and  cannot  consistently  with  principle 
be  parted  with,  so  that  the  individual  citizens  can  be  molested  by  con- 
fiscation, or  by  that  other  tyranny  next  of  kin  to  it,  'and  which  is  called 
a  substitution  of  value  in  lieu  of  the  identical  property.  There  is  in 
the  veritable  thing  itself  which  one  owns,  no  matter  what  it  is,  a  pro- 
perty— a  mystic  charm — which  no  other  thing,  though  of  greater  value, 
does  or  can  wear  under  constraint  to  accept  it  instead.  I  am  well  aware 
that  confiscatian  strictly  applies  to  the  ex-appropriation  of  the  estate  of 
a  public  enemy;  and  that  when  the  property  of  a  subject  or  citizen  is 
taken  from  him  by  his  government,  for  the  benefit  of  the  public  treasury, 
it  is  properly  called  a  forfeiture :  and  I  instance  confiscation  as  one  of 
the  ways  in  which  title  to  property  may  be  divested,  because  I  hold  that 
it  is  founded  in  the  same  policy  of  violence  in  which  a  substitution  of 
value' is  founded!  The  one  is  intended  to  weaken  the  belligerent  power 
of  the  public  enemy,  the  estate  of  whose  citizens  is  confiscated,  while 
the  other  weakens  the  power  of  the  citizens,  humbles  them,  as  against 
their   own   government  which  is    a  belligerent  power  over  them,  in 


12 

the  sense  that  government,  though  necessary,  is  an  evil.  It  seems 
to  me  that  every  principle  of  free  government,  that  -can  be  ap- 
pealed to  and  calmly  consulted,  will  respond  that  it  is  incom- 
patible with  it;  that  the  collective  power  of  the  community  to  re- 
sist the  encroachments  of  their  government,  shall  in  detail  and  by 
parts,  be  crippled  by  a  substitution  of  value  for  their  identical  property, 
by  their  own  government.  A  citizen  so  coerced,  is  humbled.  All  that 
is  the  more  manifest  when  it  is  taken  into  the  account  that  the  substitu- 
tion cannot  be  effected  without  paying  the  individuals  for  their  property, 
out  of  the  public  fund  which,  by  them  equally  with  others,  has  been 
contributed  to  be  used  in  the  general  charge  and  expenditure.  I  am 
aware  it  is  supposed  by  some  intelligent  men,  who  have  not  thoroughly 
investigated  the  subject  with  a  view  to  act  on  it,  that  a  negation  of  the 
right  of  substitution  in  the  relation  1  am  proposing  it,  is  a  novelty.  But 
the  mistake  is  theirs  and  not  mine,  even  if  it  were  a  mistake  to  urge  a 
novelty.  Any  thing  that  is  novel,  is  not  apt  to  be  embraced  at  once  ; 
but  wisdom  will  not  refuse  t<»  investigate  a  proposal  because  it  is  some- 
thing novel,  ilow  but  "by  novelties  has  one  age  improved  on  another? 
The  right  of  government,  and  it  matters  not  in  the  principle,  whether 
it  js  the  citizen's  own  government  or  another  with  which  his  is  negotia- 
ting— the  right  of  govemnu  'it.  i  say.  to  put  oft*  the  owner  who  is  de- 
prived of  his  Blave  proverty,  with  a  restitution  in  the  form  of  a  price  in 
money  paid  for  it  as  an  equivalent,  came  up  to  be  considered  in  Jay's 
treaty.  The  controversy  arose  on  the  clause  relating  to  captured  negro 
slaves,  in  the  seventh  article  of  that  treaty  with  Great  Britain.  In  the 
United  Stat.-  it  wa  I  to  mean  that  the  slaves  in  kind  ought  to 

be  restored  :  whilst  in  the  Oth Br  country  it  was  contended  that  such  con- 
struction could  not  be  ai'ow,  d.  because  it  would  throw  back  into  servi- 
tude men  once  made  free.  There  was  another  hitch,  that  the'/  had  not 
been  rightfully  made  free.  It  was  maintained  by  Alexander  Hamilton 
that  "  it  does  not  remove  the  difficulty  to  say  that  compensation  for  the 
negroes  might  have  been  a  sufficient  substitute  for  them.  When  one 
party  promises  a  specific  thing  to  another,  nothing  but  the  thing  itself 
will  satisfy  the  promise.  The  party  to  whom 'it  is  made  cannot  be  re- 
quired to  accept  in  lieu  of  it  an  equivalent,"  even  where  it  is,  as  to  the 
price  paid,  a  fair  equivalent.  It  is  the  identical  property  in  slaves  which 
our  constitutions  promise  to.protect.  I  hold  that  the  transaction  of  a 
substitution  without  the  owner's  consent,  is  not  relieved  of  the  injustice 
ami  odium  attaching  to  it,  when  it  is  hi;  own  and  not  another  govern- 
ment that  subjects  him  to  it.  Indeed,  it  is  but  the  more  odious  for  his 
own  government  to  do  it.  In  the  other  ease,  he  will  not  have  contrib- 
uted to  the  fund  out  of  which  he  is  paid  ;  and  in  this  case,  he  is  not 
only  paid  out  of  his  own  public  treasury,  but  it  is  further  the  more  odi- 
ous because  he  is  deprived  by  the  government  which  is  promising  him 
security  of  life,  liberty  and  property — not  one  species  and  not  another, 
nor  one  species  in  place  of  another — but  his  property,  and  that  equally 
with  his  life  and  liberty.  "Life,  liberty  and  property"  are  nestled  in  the 
same  sentence  iii  the  constitution — it  cherishes  them  alike,  as  the  old 
bird  her  young  one-. 

Let  it  be  observed  thai    n  is  in    subjection  to  that  constitution,  which 


13 

promises  security  of  property  to  the  owner,  that  a  state  in  our  system 
act.s,  when  she  is  altering  her  constitution,  and  it  cannot  fail  to  be  seen 
and  felt  that  this  proceeding,  which  I  ask  to  be  adopted,  is  no  attack  on 
state  rights.  No  surrender  of  power  to  the  confederate  government,  is 
invited  from  the  .state.  No  larger  surrender  than  the  states  made  in 
coming  under  that  government.  The  invocation  is  that  the  state  shall 
abide  by  the  principle  which  itself  has  ratified  in  joining  the  confede- 
racy. The  invocation  is  in  behalf  of  the  rights  of  the  individual  citi- 
zens, as  "against  the  power  of  the  state.  That's  all.  No  question  of 
state  sights,  in  confederate  relations,  arises  on  the  doctrine.  It  touches 
only  and  proposes  to  protect  vested  rights  of  private  property,  which  it 
contends  are  reserved  against  all  our  governments,  and  mus-t  be,  else  our 
system  will  cease  to  be  republican. 

I  desire  to  add  a  few  words  to 'exclude  a  possible  misconception.  It 
may  probably  be  supposed  by  some  that  the  doctrine  inculcated  would 
in  its  practical  results  perpetuate  slavery.  Such,  I  think,  is  not  the 
tendency  of  the  doctrine,  nor  lik^rj  to  be  its  result ;  and  I  know  that 
such  is  not  its  design.  Its  effect  would  be  simply  to  stop  all  govern- 
mental interference  with'  the  existence  of  negro  slavery.  It  would  com- 
mit the  whole  subject  to  the  peaceful  influences  of  correct  social  prin- 
ciples. The  myriad  appliances  that  aggregate  individual  views  and  con- 
stitute the  intertexture  of  public  opinion,  would  work  out  the  result  de- 
sired by  society.  Under  the  prevalence  of  the  doctrine,  the  obstinacy  of 
a  few  men  could  not  long  stand  out  against  the  will  and  desire  of  all 
others.  A  real  cause,  taking  stronger  hold  than  mere  sickly  sentiment, 
and  adequate  to  induce  one  owner  to  emancipate  his  slaves,  would  not 
fail  to  control  others ;  nor  under  its  prevalence  could  the  tyranny  of  a 
majority  deprive  the  minority  of  their  property  in  making  new  consti- 
tutions;  nor  in  administering  them,  do  the  same  acts  of  tyranny  in  that 
other  form  of  substituting  a  compulsory  and  unsatisfactory  equivalent 
in  price. 

Mr.  President,  if  error  unperceived  by  me  has  crept  into  the  argu- 
ment, I  desire  it  shall  be  freely  pointed  out  plainly.  I  invite  searching 
but  candid  consideration.  I  believe  that  unless  the  doctrine  proposed 
for  adoption  shall  prevail,  it  will  not  be  twenty  years  before  this  Con- 
federacy will  fail  in  the  agitations  of  the  same  subject  in  which  the  fede- 
ral Union  found  the  rock  on  which  it  split.  This  Confederacy  is  kept 
together  on  this  subject  by  no  stronger  cement  than  that  was  bound  to- 
gether by,  originally.  The  principles  on  which  it  is  founded,  must  be 
respected  and  complied  with,  or  it  will  encounter  ere  long  the  same  dis- 
aster— not  peaceable  secession,  but  terrible  Avar.  To  secure  observance 
of  these  principles,  the  doctrine  inculcated  by  the  proposed  proceeding 
must  be  impressed  on  the  popular  judgment  and  heart.  I  would  gladly 
espouse  any  better  mode  of  making  that  impression,  if  any  better  than 
the  one  proposed,  can  be  produced. 

Surely  I  need  not  detain  the  senate  to  enlarge  on  the  importance  of 
the  permanency  of  this  Confederacy.  I  will  only  say  that  it  seems  to 
me,  for  reasons  which  I  will  point  to  in  a  few  words,  that  it  is  pre-emi- 
nently important  that  it  shall  stand  unconquered  by  force,  undiscour- 
aged  by  privations,  undivided  by  treason,  unchanged  in  the  principles  of 


14 

its  constitution,  unsullied  in  honor — the  citadel  of  law  and  order,  the 
fortress  of  freedom,  the  sanctuary  of  po/e  and  undefiled  religion.  Such 
it  is  now,  proudly  self-pleasing  and  defiantly  conciliating  the  world.  It 
i-  the  only  ark,  freighted  with  the  rich. fortunes  of  human  freedom,  that 
is  afloat  on  the  deluge  of  man's  mad  ambition.  Its  framing  timbers — 
its  principles — if  observed  and  preserved,  are  strong  enough  to  buffet 
the  raging  billows  of  that  deluge,  when  its  fury  is  the  wildest.  It  is 
the  only  polar  star  to  which  the  eye  of  humanity  in  hope  is  turned  from 
the  oppressed  nationalities,  now  that  the  federal  Union  has, failed,  and 
all  that  is  left  of  ir  has  fallen  into  a  military  despotism — a  military  des- 
potism that  is  wielding  the  vagabonds  of  the  population  it  rules,  and  the 
expatriated  vagrants  of  other  countries,  who  come  to  find  in  these  states 
opportunities  of  plunder  and  murder  ;  and  as  they  look  ahead,  all  is  beau- 
tiful and  cheering  to  behold,  and  as  they  look  back,  they  see  a  track  of 
desolation  at  which  a  devil  would  shudder.  It  is  because  we  have  the 
ark  of  freedom,  the 'monarchies  of  the  old  world  have  not  interposed  to 
arrest  the  atrocities  of  this  savage  wir.  It  is  now  with  all  the  crowned 
he  ids  as  ir  was  in  the  end  of  the  last  century,  when  the  enmity  of  old 
England  was  energized  by  Pitt,  not  against  Prance,  but  against  repub- 
lican France.  Even  under  the  strong  stimulus  to  supply  her  looms  with 
cotton — not  so  strung  as  her  desire  to  see  democratic  government  de- 
stroyed— old  England  fails  to  he  influenced  by  the  nobie  sentiments  con- 
tained in  the  energetic  note,  under  date  of  October  10th,  1M52,  of  her 
minister  to  tin-  French  government.  This  was  her' language  then:  4bRis 
Magesty  most  Bincerely  laments. the  convulsions  to  which  the  Swiss  can- 
tons have  for  some  time  been  exposed  ;  but  he  can  consider  their  late  ex- 
ertions in  no  other  light  than  as  the  lawful  effort  of  a  brave  and  gener- 
ous people  to  recover  their  ancient  law.  and  government,  and  to  procure 
the  re-eBtabli8hment  of  a  system,  which  experience  has  demonstrated, 
not  only  to  be  favorable  to  their  domestic  happiness,  but  perfectly  con- 
s  is  ten  I  with  tin-  tranquility  and  security  of  other  powers. 

"The  cantons  of  Switzerland  unquestionably  possess.in  the  same  de- 
gree a-  any  other  powers,  the  right  of  regulating  their  own  internal 
com-  in-;  :md  t!r-  right  has,  in  the  present  instance,  been  expressly 
guarantied  f>>  the  Swiss  nation  by  the  treaty  of  Luneville,  by  the  French 
government,  conjointly  with  the  other  powers  who  were  parties  to  that  en- 
gagement. His  majesty  has  no  other  desire  than  that  the  people  of  Switz- 
erhnd.  who  now  appear  to  be  so  generally  united,  should  be  left  at  lib- 
erty to  Bettle  their  own  internal  government,  without  the  interposition  of 
any  foreign  powers."  And  his  majesty  expressly  deprecated  French 
interference  "  with  their  undoubted  rights."' 

That  right  was  no  less  clearly  and  incontrovertibly  guarantied  to  these 

now  Confede  :  ktes,  by  the  federal  constitution,  than  it  was  to  Switz- 
erland by  the  treaty#of  Luneville.  Bui  England  sees  a,  difference  of 
value  to  royalty.  The  influence  of  Switzerland,  against  monarchy,  was 
not  formidable  enough  then  to  repress  the  just  impulses  of  England  in 
her  behalf.  Tin-  light  of  our  federal  republic  had  begun  to  throw  its 
dazzling  beams  inio  the  transatlantic  abodes  of  absolutism.  It  is  true 
that  England,  then,  finding  her  remonstrances  unsupported  by  the  other 
power-,  desisted  ;  but  in  our  pase,  and  against  her  every  interest,  except 


15 

that  of  monarchy,  she  has  rejected  the  offer  of  France  to  seek  conjointly 
in  generous  mood  to  initiate  a  friendly  and  just  mediation.  But  as  if  to 
confess  there  is  no  mistake  in  the  opinion  I  am  supporting,  that  the 
crowned  sovereigns  of  Europe  stand  off  in  our  struggle  against  oppres- 
sion, from  fear  of  the  influence  of  the  American  example  of  political 
freedom,  the  emperor  of  France  is  reported  to  have  recently  declared 
that  their  subjects  see  in  this  American  war  that  "  republics  or  the  men 
who  administer  their  governments,  have  the  same  pride,  passions  and 
lust  of  empire  that  influence  sovereigns."  He  rejoices  that  republican- 
ism has  never  been  so  dead  in  Europe  as  now,  and  says :  "  We  can  -af- 
ford to  suffer  much  in  our  material  interests,  while  this  revolutionary 
drama  of  the  republicans  is  dissolving  in  blood."  That  was  the  secret 
cause  of  England's  declining  the  offer  from  which  the  emperor  himself 
turned  his  face,  wreathed  with  royalty,  as  soon  as  he  could  stifle  his  first 
generous  impulse.  We  ought  not  to  grow  any  more  cotton,  during  this 
war,  than  necessary  for  home  consumption,  and  so  demonstrate  that  our 
love  of  republican  constitutional  freedom,  is  stronger  than  our  love  of 
"material  interests."- 

Although,  Mr.  President,  I  have  thus  finished  all  it  occurred  to  me 
at  the  beginning  of  this  exposition,  I  would  put  forth  in  support  of  the 
plan  proposed  for  impressing  right  views  of  the  subject  on  the  mind  and 
heart  of  these  states  holding  the  African  race,  amongst  us  by  descent, 
in  bondage,  I  crave  to  be  allowed  to  linger  longer.  I  repeat  that  I  do 
not  intend  to  discuss  the  territorial  question,  because  it  has  been  shut 
out  from  our  Confederacy  for  the  present  and  probably  forever.  There 
is,  however,  a  principle,  I  have  already  alluded  to,  which  did  underlie 
that  question — .which  survives,  and  must  be  effective,  or  else  a  failure  of 
the  property-principle  will  be  apt  to  ensue  in  any  one  of  these  states,  on 
any  occasion  of  its  being  ascertained  that  the  non-slaveholding  voters 
are  in  the  majority  in  the  state. 

•  It  will  be  remembered  by  senators,  that  the  South,  and  the  foremost 
friends  of  this  great  southern  right — a  right  by  recognition  of  law  in 
many  and  unequivocal  forms — yielded,  in  the  discussions  of  that  ques- 
tion, and  made  the  concession  in  every  conceivable  form,  by  legislation 
and  in  state  conventions  of  parties,  and  in  primary  assemblages  of  the 
people,  that  the  territorial  people  having  amongst  them  slaveholders 
resident,  and  composing  however  large  a  part,  less  than  a  majority  of 
slaveholders,  might,  when  they  came  to  form  their  constitution  to  become 
a  state  invthe  Union,  by  regular  or  irregular  admission  as  such,  provide 
in  that  instrument  that  slavery  should  no  longer  exist  in  the  incoming 
state.  That  is,  it  was  yielded  by  the  South  that  the  territorial"  people 
consisting  (I  will  say,  to  illustrate)  of  five  hundred  voters,  251  for  and 
249  against  the  continued  existence  of  slavery,  might  provide  by  their 
proposed  constitution,  and  that  congress  should  admit  the  state  so  pro- 
viding, that  the  minority  should  cease  to  be  slaveholding  in  the  new  state. 
On  the  score  of  policy,  had  policy  alone  been  consulted,  that  was  exceed- 
ingly unselfish  and  unwise.  Nay,  it  was  fatal  to  the  interest  of  the 
slaveholding  states  in  the  matter  especially  of  extending  the  area  of 
slavery.  The  North,  with  the  much  larger  population,  and  more  crowded, 
was  likely  and  almost  certain  to  send  out  into  the  territories  a  majority 


16 

of  settlors  who  might,  that  point  being  yielded  by  the  slaveholding 
states,  have  made  all  the  new  states  non-slaveholding.  Why  did  not 
that  satisfy  them  '  But  it  was  the  principle  which  was  so  fatally  smoth- 
ered by  the  South,  that  is  now  most  valuable,  because  it  extends  itself, 
with  clear  applicability,  into  the  question  of  the  continuance  of  slavery 
in  the  Btates  where  it  has  been  long  cherished.  It  cannot  be  unobserved, 
on  a  moment's  inspection  of  the  subject,  that  if  a  people  in  forming 
their  first  constitution,  can  expel  any  species  of  property  from  within 
their. territorial  extent,  already  existing  lawfully  there  at  the  time,  they 
can  also  expel  the  same  species — and  if  one,  equally  any  other — when- 
ever they  alter  that  constitution  by  subsequent  conventional  action.  It 
is  alone  the  republican  creed  which  respects  no  less  the  essential  rights 
of  property  than  those  of  persons,  that  prevents  the  expulsion  of  an 
existing  property,  when  the  Btate  alters  its  constitution,  no  less  than 
when  the  Btate  was  first  organized  on  the  republican  creed  for  the  model. 
It  is  true  I  repeat  the  idea,  whilst  republican  constitutions  are  moulded 
by  circumstances,  and  most  be  modified  to  conform  to  the  results  of  ex- 
perience, that  when  the  modifications  dispense  with  the  essential  princi- 
ples of  freedom,  as  when  the  mutilation  of  the  tribunate  was  reserved 
for  the  time  Napoleon  was  to  be  elected  first  consul  for  life,  the  republic 
is  thereby  converted  into  a  monarchy  or  other  government  that  is  not 
free. 

So  clear  is  it.  that  if  a  territorial  people  in  forming  their  constitution 
in  conformity  to  republican  principles,  might  have  expelled  slave  pro- 
perty, the  people  of  the  Btate  might  do  the  Bame  violence  in  altering  a 
constitution  which  did  proteel  tie-  existing  property  from  such  expul- 
sion. I  pray  to  be  informed  what  it  was  but  this  principle  of  vested 
property,  that  prevented  our  fathers  from  expelling  slaves  when  the  colo- 
nies bad  accomplished  their  independence,  and  were  constituted  repub- 
lican Btatea  '  They  deplored,  what  was  then  thought  to  be,  the  evil  of 
slavery.  I  pray  to  be  informed  what  it  is  but  this  principle  of  property, 
thai  c;tn  prevent  agrarianism  and  anarchy.  The  republican  form  was 
and  is  the  foregone  conclusion  to  be  abided  by.  Andyel  wonderful  to  be 
told  for  true,  that  these  slaveholding  states  yielded  in  the  discussion  of 
the  territorial  question,  this  great  principle  which  is  the  only  stay  and 
Bupport  of  Blavery  in  these  states — the  only  breakwater  against  the  flood 
of  fanaticism  on  the  Bubject  of  negro-emancipation.  More  wonderful 
it  is  that  •  lected  for  their  first  president,  the  man  who  as 

senator  was  mosl  conspicuous  in  yielding  up  the  great  principle  which  in 
all  it.>  vigor  is  indispensable  to  the  safety  and  stability  of  our  slave  sys- 
tem. So  deeply  was  the  error  driven  into  the  popular  mind.  The  won- 
der i>  that  the  people  did  not  detect  and  reject  the  radical  error  of  the 
politicians.  I  make  that  observation,  let  it  he  understood,  in  the  tenor 
and  BtrictneSS  of  the  argument,  and  not  with  any  design,  much  tyss  de- 
sire, to  disparage  the  president.  Did  i  intend  an}' attack  on  hisyalmin- 
istration,  it  would  not  be  made  indirectly  or  equivocally.  My  desire  is 
coincident  with  the  scope  of  the  proposed  proceeding  on  its  face,  to  rein- 
state in  the  greal  heart  of  this  Confederacy,  the  great  principle  which 
for  ;i  time  was  losl  sight  of. 

Incidentally  to  demonstrate  that  no  want  of  respect  for  the  president 


17 

is  intended  to  be  displayed  by  that  observation  on  his  election,  but 
with  the  broader  purpose  to  show  the  deep  political  dissent  from  his 
view  which  the  doctrine  proposed  is  intended  to  advance,  I  will  refer  to 
another  series  of  resolutions  presented  twelve  years  before,  (in  1847) 
by  no  less  true  and  firm  a  man  in  support  of  our  rights  than  John  C. 
Calhoun  himself.  It  is  the  fallacy,  not  to  say  heresy,  that,  in  our  sys- 
tem, the  majority  in  making  constitutions,  may  adjust  or  readjust,  or 
jostle  the  principle  of  private  property,  I  am  dealing  with,  and  which 
the  doctrine  I  am  urging  contradicts  and  will  never  admit.  This  doc- 
trine confronts  and  seeks  to  frustrate  the  idea  that  the  Mexican  law, 
for  instance,  prohibiting  slavery,  had  any  efficacy  to  expel  or  exclude 
negro  slavery,  after  New  Mexico  and  California  were  acquired  by  the 
United  States.  That  soil  with  all  upon  it,  after  the  aquisition,  was  un- 
der the  American  law — under  the  dominion  of  the  federal  constitution 
which  recognized  this  slavery.  My  doctrine  is  the  opposite  of  the 
policy  of  the  Wilmot  proviso,  which  was  the  watchword  of  party  organ- 
izations and  the  synonyme  of  sectional  agitation.  That  policy  was  that 
no  part  of  the  territory  to  be  acquired,  should  be  open  to  the  introduc- 
tion of  slavery,  and  that  it  should  be  excluded  by  federal  legislation. 
My  doctrine  is  that  neither  the  federal  government  had,  nor"  the  con- 
federate has,  any  authority  over  the  subject  to  destroy  or  impair  the  ex- 
istence or  the  extension  of  the  ownership.  It  denies  that  the  slavery 
of  negroes  with  us  is  an  "institution,"  and  contends  that  where  it  law- 
fully is,  it  is  an  ownership  by  individuals — not  an  institute  by  govern- 
ment— and  that  where  it  was  pre-existing,  the  government  must  be  con- 
stituted to  protect  it  to  its  owners.  It  maintains  that  the  rights  to  and 
in  this  property,  so  ancient  that  their  origin  is  lost  in  the  dim  haze  of 
the  most  distant  antiquity,,  should  be  acknowledged,  respected  and 
guarded  by  human  governments,  and  that  the  unholy  hand  of  human 
legislation  shall  not  touch  them  to  destroy  or  impair.  They  have  their 
source  and  authenticity  in  the  munificent  ordinance  of  the  divine  gov- 
ernment over  society.  Not  an  instance  can  be  found  in  the  word  of 
God,  in  which  such  rights  were  ever  withdrawn  or  intermitted  under  His 
government ;  for,  whilst  hired  servants  might  be  emancipated,  bond  slaves 
could  not  be.  The  doctrine  maintains  that  such  existing  rights  should  be 
respected  at  all  times  and  in  all  places,  and  that  all  human  government 
should,  and  that  republican  ones  must,  bow  before  them,  even  is  the 
sheaves  of  his  brethren  bowed  before  the  sheaf  of  Joseph.  Yet  the 
doctrine  admits  that  where  negro  slavery  is  not  already,  the  government 
of  the  state  may  be  constituted  to  keep  it  out.  So  it  is,  and  in  such 
sanctions,  the  proposed  doctrine  denies  what  senator  Calhoun's  resolution 
asserted,  to  wit:  that  "it  is  a  fundamental  principle  of  our  political 
creed,"  that  a  people,  the  people  of  a  territory  or  state  under  the  fede- 
ral government,  or  of  a  state  under  the  confederate,  "in  forming  a  con- 
stitution had  (or  have)  the  constitutional  right  to  form  and  adopt  the 
government  which  they  may  think  best  calculated  to  secure  their  liberty, 
prosperity  and  happiness,"  &c.  It  is  true  it  adds  truly  that  the  condi- 
tion is  imposed  that  "the  constitution  shall  be  republican."  Notwith- 
standing this  addition  to  the  thought  first  expressed,  as  I  have  recited 
it  verbatim,  the  resolution  evidently  allows  the  concession  to  be  plainly 
3 


18 

implied,  that  the  majority  in  first  forming  and  afterwards  in  altering 
their  constitution,  might  expel  (what  in  debating  the  resolution  he  ad- 
mitted was)  our  "peculiar  institution,"  although  it  was  a  pre-existing 
property — might  expel  it,  if  in  the  judgment  and  by  the  decision  of  that 
majority,  it  was  deemed  "best  calculated  to  secure  their  liberty,  pros- 
perity and  happiness."  If  the  riddance  would  be  apt  to  produce  such 
effects*  the  individual  owners  would  be  apt  to  see  and  secure  the  benefit 
without  being  compelled  to  it  by  law.  The  doctrine  proposed  oppungs 
that  proposition — indignantly  rejects  and  disallows  that  concession  to 
any  sort  of  compulsory  emancipationists.  Whence,  I  desire  to  be  in- 
formed, did  or  do  any  people,  under  our  system,  federal  or  confederate, 
desire  such  "constitutional  right?"  I  need  not  say  no  more  than  I 
have  already,  to  show -that  the  abstract  right  does  not  exist,  and  that 
the  claim  that  it  does,  contravenes  the  manifest  ordinances  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  God.  To  the  contrary  of  the  existence  of  the  "constitu- 
tional" right,  my  whole  argument  is  that  the  fundamental  policy  of  our 

tern,  founded  on  and  fenced  in  by  the  republican  creed,  essentially  is 
that  the  Btate  must  b  fco^protect  pre-existing  rights  of  pro- 

perty. If  the  majority  in  constituting  the  government,  or  if  that  when 
cons'tituted,  may  seize  on  the  property  of  its  owners — on  any  species  of 
property — the  right  to  which  it  did  not  create,  but  was  instituted  to  pro- 
tect— nay,  Beize  on  it.  not  for  public  use.  but  to  get  rid  of  it — there  can 
be  no  safety  in  society.  Thus  government  would  beeome  a  sword  of 
subsequent  destruction,  instead  of  ansagis  to  protect  pie-existing  rights, 
:i-  it  Bhould  be.  t-»  the  full  extenl  they  have  not  been  parted  with  in  or- 
ganising the  state  by  the  constitutional  contract  for  the  public  good. 
That  contract,  in  our  of  written  consitutions,  defines  the  extent 

to  which  those  pre-e:  rights  are  parted  with  or  impaired  for  the 

pUD]  i  denned]  d  to  be  promoted.     That 

be  theory,  and  if  in  practice  it  turns  out  otherwise,  the  only  alterna- 
te Ht  with  the  theory,  is  to  amend  the  form.,  and  supply  the 
deficiency,  of  thecon  titutional  provisions;  but  always  and  at  oil />oints 

conformity  with  the  republican  mod  I     Especially  should  so  extensiv% 

:in  BBgifl  he  thrown  around  the  property  pre-existing  in  our  .slaves,  and 
be  tightened   in   all   i  ■■  now  thai    the  outside  world,  not 

knowing  as  we  know,  the  nature  and  condition  of  our  slaves,  are  blindly 
or  perver  ely  hostile  to  tl  mch  property,  but  still  more 

hostile  to  the  existence  of  our  republican  system.     They  forget  the    u- 
pernal  lesson  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  to  learn  first   to  show  piety  at  home. 
Mr.  President  a-  that  my  strength  is  not  ade- 

quate (much  less  in  the  suitable  limits  of  a  speech)  to  the  weight  of  this 
mighty  subject.  1  trust  that  others  will  a  beauty  and  a  power  in 
the  doctrine,  which  1  have  not  been  able  to  exhibit  in  their  exceeding 
fullness.  -I'M  lei  its  ample  riches  fertilize  our  country,  and  this  con- 
federate republic  will  be  stabilitated  ami  glorified.  Then  the  patriot 
and  the  philanthropist  alike  shall  walk  about  with  pride  and  in  safety 
within  the  folds  of  the  gorgeous  curtains  of  our  country's  grandeur. 
Then  the  philosopher  and  the  historian  shall  heboid  the  towers  of  her 
strength,  and  survey  her  palaces,  and  inspect  her  bulwarks,  and  tell  it 
to  the  generation  following,  and  thai  to  the  next,  and  this  to#anpther, 


19 

that  human  freedom  regulated  by  liberal  laws,  as  liberal  as  nature's  God 
allows,  was  her  mission,  and  the  living  God  is  her  guide  and  shield.  It  was 
the  mistaken  concession  by  the  South,  that  this  doctrine  was  in  theory 
and  practice  absent  from  the  councils  of  the  federal  Union,  jthat  let  in 
the  territorial  question,  in  the  deep,  protracted  and  angry  agitation  of 
which  that  Union  went  down — to  be  rebuilt  no  more,  I  desire  and  predict. 
The  doctrine  I  desire  to.  advance,  Mr.  President  and  Senators,  gives 
the*  lie  to  the  alleged  justness  of  this  war  on  the  part  of  our  enemy,  and 
confronts  the  aim,  to  wit,  a  restoration  of  the  Union,  which  the  urgers 
on  of  the  war  proposed.  Senator  Sumner,  in  the  federal  senate,  in 
1862,  with  much  parade  of  verbal  elaboration,  depicted  how  these  "slave 
states"  were  urging  on  a  war  "  with  criminal  eminence  to  overthrow  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States."  This  doctrine  proposed  for  your 
sanction,  asserts  that  we  are  struggling  to  defend  the  most  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  that  constitution,  to  wit,  its  recognitions  (amongst  us) 
of  certain  human  beings,  namely,  negroes,  as  persons  participating  to  a 
large  extent  in  their  peculiar  condition  and  relations,  the  element  of 
property  .^  By  that  constitution  five  of  them,  with  equality  of  qualifica- 
tions in  age  and  residence,  were  made  to  count  in  apportioning  repre- 
sentation, only  as  much  as  three  of  the  white  race.  'By  that  con- 
titution  which  was  ratified  by  .the  states,  when  all  of  them  but  one, 
had  that  population*  resident  in  them,  those  creatures  were  allowed  to  be 
imported  for  nineteen  years  from  their  native  country,  to  be  made  slaves 
of  in  this,  and  so  to  be  made  a  property.  So  far  from  striving  to  over- 
throw that  constitution,  our  desire  and  struggle  are  to  maintain  its  chief 
characteristics.  That  is  our  aim — to  maintain,  not  to  destroy ;  and  the 
proposed  proceeding  defines  and  defends  that  aim.  It  directly  confronts 
and  resists  the  opposing  aim  of  Senator  Sumner  and  his  compeers  who 
are  waging  a  war  with  criminal  pre-eminence  and  disgraceful  ill  success, 
to  obliterate  that  peculiar  feature  in  that  federal  constitution,  which  is 
retained  and  fortified  in  the  confederate.  They  are  striving  to  sink  the 
element  of  property  in  those  creatures  whom  they  will  not  quite  receive 
as  equals,  and  whom  it  is  our  duty  and  desire  to  elevate  in  the  scale  of 
being.  If  that  element  be  sunk  in  them,  we  cannot  take  care  of  them, 
as  we  do,- as  the  wards  of  civilization,  subjected  to  discipline,  if  under 
Providence  their  character  may  be  found  so  corrigible  that  they  may  be 
made  vessels  to  bear  from  this  country  the  lights  of  christian  culture 
here  received,  to  chase  away  the  night  of  barbarism  from  their  father- 
land. Success  by  the  false  philanthropists  to  sink  that  element,  will  be 
a  subversion  of  that  federal  constitution  which  they  with  us  solemnly 
ratified  when  the  existence  of  that  property  in  the  states  was  more  their 
fault  than  ours,  if  indeed  it  was  at  all  our  fault.  He  and  they  contend, 
and  hence  this  war,  that  negroes  are  known  to  that  constitution  only  as 
persons,  and  therefore  that  there  is  a  difference  between  (he  says)  "  the 
■pretended  property  in  slaves  and  all  other  property."  He  and  they  are 
not  mindful  of  the  memorials  sent  up  from  this  section  to  the  United 
States  senate  in  1850,  which  Senator  Seward,  now  their  secretary  of 
state,  supported  by  his  votes,  to  the  effect  that  on  account  of  the  exist- 
ence of  "property  claimed  in  man"  to  exist  constitutionally  in  this  sec- 
tion, their  congress,  and  then  ours  also  as  much  as  theirs,  "  should  frame 


20 

some  plan  for  the  immediate  and  peaceful  dissolution  of  the  American 
Union."  Then,  verily  then,  we  ought  to  have  acceded  to  the  prayer  of 
their  memorialists.  We  ought  not  to  have  waited  until  he  and  they 
pretended  not  to-be  influenced  by  the  fact  that  the  laws  of  the  states 
where  the  negro  is  a  property  in  man  owned  by  man,  treat  him  only  as 
a  property  in  every  relation  in  whioh  he  is  not  by  exceptional  stipula- 
tion required  to  be  dealt  by  and  with,  and  mostly  in  behalf  of  himself, 
as  a  person,  in  penal  legislation.  (So-  slow  were  we,  as  he  says,  to 
"  overthrow  that  constitution,")  But  he  and  they  are  influenced  by  that 
fact,  and  it  is  to  them  a  stumbling-block  ;  and  hence  their  eager  desire 
to  obliterate  state  lines.  He  and  they  pretend  not  to  see  that  to  treat 
the  negro,  by  federal  law,  as  wholly  a  person,  would  defeat  the  state 
law,  enshrined  in  state-rights,  which  treats  him  chiefly  as  a  property. 
Why,  but  to  get  rid  of  that  difficulty,  do  they  desire  to  get  rid  of  state 
lines  ?  Thus  it  is,  he  and  they  seek  to  overthrow  the  constitution,  the 
chief  peculiarity  of  which  we  arc  struggling  to  maintain;  whilst  it  is 
the  vicious  administration  of  the  government  that  constitution  ordained, 
displaying  itself  now  in  habitual  and  persistent  exercises  of  usurped 
extra-constitutional  power,  which  we  resist.  And  we  resist,  in  virtue  of 
that  high  right  of  revolution  that  docs  not  fail  to  move  the  arms  of  the 
hearts  it  inspires,  to  win  congenial  and  glorious  success.  It  is  the  great 
right  wlii;  '  i  forget  he  said  iit  the  United  States 

senate  in  184' .  to  liberate  the  world.'1     It  is  not  surprising  that 

the  trans-atlantic  press,  being  advocates  of  royalty,  are  Avilling  that  that 
grand  did  Anglo-Saxon  right  shall  be  whittled  down  to  the  puling  privi- 
lege of  peaceful  secession,  for  it  docs  not  apply  to  them,  and  it  is  revo- 
lution that  must  throttle  royalty  and  throw  down  its  thrones.  Ours  is, 
indeed,  a  fierce  conflict,  worthy  of  the  noble  idea  of  revolution,  in  which 
there  is  much  to  rejoice  a1  and  much  to  deplore.  Our  strength  is  in  this, 
that  thrice  armed  is  he  who  hath  his  quarrel  just.  They  forget  that 
their  system  waB,  as  our.-  is,  one  of  opinion,  and  not  of  the  sword.  The 
philosophic  beholder  of  the  disgraceful  spectacle,  will  not  fail  to  discern 
with  as,  a  een  in  England  in  Cromwell's  time, 

an  unconquered  spirit  destined  proudly  to  restore,  as  the  doctrine  pro- 
posed. .  .in  its  full  vigor,  in  the  popular  affections,  the  constitution 
in  that  its  most  distinguishing  feature;  whilst  with  them  who  seek  its 
overthrow,  as  in  France  under  the  empire  of  Napoleon,  is  as  clearly 
seen  the  well-known  features  of  Asiatic  servility  that  has  been  the  grave 
in  every  age,  of  free  goi  rnm  ot.  We  rejoice  at  what  is  seen  here, 
whilst  we  deplore  their  self-willed  downfall.  May  the  Almighty,  in  his 
infinite  wisdom,  educe  much  good  even  for  them  out  of  the  wicked  war 
tiny  have  waged,  and  bring   them   to  practice   his  scriptures  given  by 

inspiration  for  p<  irth  and  g 1  will  amongst  men. 

Let  the  doctrine  proposed  be  adopted,  Mr.  President  and  senators,  to 
wit:  that  the  existing  negro  slavery  in  these  states,  is  a  property  enti- 
tled, just  as  other  properties  are,  to  the  protection  of  the  encircling  re- 
publican creed,  from  the  rude  touch  of  the  numerical  majority  in  mak- 
ing constitutions;  let  that  doctrine  be  adhered  to  with  undeviating 
fidelity  and  firmness  by  these  concurrent  sovereign  Confederate  States, 
and  by  such  others  as  may  join  in  with  them,  so  that  it  shall  not  be 


21 

overcome  by  the  temporary  views  and  yielding  policy  of  politicians  seek- 
ing office,  until  it  shall  become  a  national  sentiment — not  the  sentiment 
of  a  consolidated  empire,  but  the  unanimous  sentiment  of  the  Confede- 
rate States — and  we  will  be  let  alone,  more  and  more,  until  the  advent 
of  the  time,  if  such  time  be  indeed  in  the  contemplation  of  the  Divine 
mind,  when  the  black  man  shall  cease  to  be  the  slave  of  fhe  white.  In 
this  event  we  will  be  let  alone  altogether,  and  be  troubled  with  holding 
them  no  longer,  because  the  angel  of  the  Lord  will  then  require  no 
Hagar  to  return  to  her  mistress,  and  the  teachings  of  Paul  w.ll  then 
have  an  end,  that  servant-;  under  the  yoke  shall  count  their  masters 
worthy  of  all  honors  of  obedience.  Then,  if  that  time  shall  ever  come, 
onerous  as  the  pecuniary  burden  of  slavery  on  the  owners  is,  and  which 
in  the  interim  we  should  patiently  bear,  the  relief  by  the  riddance  will 
be  as  durable  as  the  process  by  which  the  creative  Disposer  of  events 
on  the  earth,  can  accomplish  it,  will  be  peaceful.  Then  it  will  be  ac- 
quiesced in  by  all,  and  not  be  drenched  in  blood,  as  it  will  be,  and  still 
fail,  foundering  in  a  heaving  sea  of  human  gore,  if  attempted  by  man 
before  the  way  is-  opened  and  made  clear  by  the  Son  of  God  who  reigneth 
with  power  according  to  the  spirit  of  holiness.  Then  the  emancipated 
owners  from  the  ponderous  pecuniary  burden,  will  see,  as  other  beholders, 
that  the  time  has  really  been  reached,  when  all  shall  be  free,  no  matter 
what  color  the  pilgrim  shall  bear  on  his  brow  and  wear  in  all  his  skin. 
But  I  do  not  believe  that  time  will  soon  come.  Though  not  a  prophet 
or  the  son  of  one,  I  venture  to  predict  that  the  slavery  of  the  colored 
race  will  remain  after  yet  other  attempts  to  abolish  it,  rising  on  the 
fleeting  ascendant  of  ambition  and  crime,  will  have  been  extinguished  in 
blood. 

I  hope  for  and  expect,  Mr.  President  and  Senators,  a  more  enlightened 
result  of  the  vote  of  this  general  assembly  of  Virginia,  on  the  proposed 
declaration  of  doctrine,  than  the  Grecian  philosopher  expected  from  the 
Athenians,  who  chiding  a  man  who  had  addressed  them,  said  to  him : 
"  If  you  had  spoken  wisely,  they  would  have  given  no  signs  of  appro- 
bation." I  trust  I  have  spoken  wisely,  (though  feebly,)  and  I  expect 
that,  therefore,  you  will  approve. 

Now,  senators,  is  the  accepted  time— the  very  nick  of  time — to  put 
forth  this  declaration  of  doctrine.  Our  right  of  property  in  our  slaves 
has  been  muddled  in  the  pool  of  politics.  Our  right  and  .its  sure  de- 
fences should  now  be  made  clear  and  put  on  the  right  foundations,  when 
we  are  just  starting  on  a  new  career,  and  our  true  character  and  conduct 
on  the  subject  are  being  made  better  known ;  so  that  all  men  everywhere 
may  understand  that  we  can  have  a  clean  conscience,  and  that  if  other 
nations  will  candidly  examine  the  greater  wrongs,  (in  the  less  lurid  light 
of  this  they  impute  to  us,)  to  which  human  beings  in  their  midst  are 
subjected,  it  behooves  them  most  urgently  to  take  heed  to  the  doctrine 
of  inspired  wisdom,  "to  learn  first  to  show  piety  atjsome."  Let 
the  wise  lessons  of  virtue  be  so  inculcated  as  to  take  hold  on  the  famiiy 
circle,  and  the  neighbors  will  be  apt  to  come  under  the  influence,  and 
will  be  more  impressible,  because  they  will  not  have  been  intruded  upon. 
It  is  by  pride  and  vanity  that  men  are  led  to  believe  that  domestic  mis- 
sions are  an  humbler  sphere,  than  the  operations  of  foreign  missions.    It 


22 

is  real  humility  and  pious  sincerity  that  find  the  greater  delight  in 
spreading  helps  in  all  their  vicinity.  The  spark  will  not  fire  the  edifice, 
if  it  o-oes  out  when  it  falls:  nor  will  a  coal  not  burning  kindle  a  fire  in 
the  surrounding  materials. 

And  that  lesson  is  no  less  applicable  to  nations,  than  it  is  to  individu- 
als. They  of  Europe  might,  in  their  false  sympathy  for  the  blacks  in 
ameliorated  condition  with  us,  be  reminded  of  the  treatment  of  that 
once  most  powerful  nation  in  her  north,  Poland,  the  country  of  Sobi- 
eski,  who.se  descendants  now  "  want  a  country,"  whose  dominions  stretch- 
ed from  jkoto  Swabia,  and  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Euxine,  whose 
frontiers,  for  five  hundred  year-,  in  spite  of  gigantic  displays  of  resist- 
ing valor,  were  contracted  more  and  more,  until  struck  down  by  hostile 
armies  and  swept  by  spoliations,  she  was  partitioned  out-by  neighboring 
potentates  amongst  themselves  made  powerful  by  territorial  acquisitions 

ior  to  the  partition)  wrested  from  herself.  And  old  England  might 
be  reminded  of  the  catholics  of  Ireland,  to  whom  "no talents  or  virtues 
could  give  any  hope  of  advancement."  Those  nations  might  be  remind- 
ed ,,f  Russia's  serf,  and  of  abject  subjects  of  despotic  sw»y  in  all  their 
borders.  When  the  passions  have  cooled,  by  which  the  powerful  people 
in  the  north  of  this  continent  have  been  plunged  injo  this  war  onus,  the 
sign*]  scandal  of  the  age,  they  may  be  reminded  of  some  of  their  na- 
tional traits  and  transactions  which  do  not  rai>e  them  above  reproach. 
Old  England  and  New  England  might  be  reminded,  as  capping  the  cli- 
max of  inconsistent  atrocities,  how  they  encouraged  the  capturing  and 
bringing  from  their  Dative  home,  and  subjecting  to  servitude  in  this  hemis- 
the  original  stock  of  Africans  whose  descendants,  old  England 

D  after  v.  '.    -  New  England  now  is,  against  our  solemn p^o- 

ii  ;I,  ],,,    .  siting  to  escape  from  the  far  less  severe  servitude 

than  that  th  brought  from,  and  to  do  it  "by  rising  in  arms  and 

nmrderii  n  whom  they  obtruded  them"  by  a  piratical  commerce. 

n  England  m  minded  that  it  was  at  tic  insta  ice  of  her  rep- 

, M.nt  remonstrance  against  that  ''execrable 
commen  "ken  from  our  Declaration  of  Independence,  as  it 

v,:i  :,!s    author,  a   southern  slave-holder.      Old  England 

might  be  reminded  that  '  of  her  parliament,  in  the  first  of  char- 

Ulted    by    her,  tho  British   West   India   islands,  for  a  long  time, 

were  supplied  with  •   from  Africa,  who  were  captives  in  war, 

wn0  le  for  her  colonies.     She  might  be  re- 

minded that  the  late  United  under  the  lead  of  these  southern 

ided  her  in  the  "race  of  humanity,"  as  Wilberforce  urged 
foi   her  imitation,  by  fixing  a   period,  in    L808,  when,  as  he  called  it, 
"the  infamous  traffic"    should  come  to  an  end.     She  and  all  other  for- 
eign  intermeddlers,  and  their  coadjutors  in  the  United  States,  ought  to 
member  thai    Mr.   Hibbert,   in  parliament,   asked  what  are  the  few 
Tied  across  the  Atlantic,  to  the  multitudes  who  are  driven  across  the 
:t',  or  descend  into  Egypt  ior  the  vast  markets  of  the  mus- 
Iman  world:   and  that   he  told  them   then,  as  1  tell   them  now:    Go,  if 

;  bave  not  benevolent  work  enough  at  home — go,  civilize  central  Af- 

rioa — abolish,  if  you  can.  thatcmel  practice  there  of  selling  or  putting 

to  death  ali  captives  taken  in  tribal  wars,  an  1  you  will  have  made  a  move 


23 

of  some  wisdom  and  power  in  checking  the  increase  of  negro  slavery. 
This  wpuld  not  be  a  more  difficult  enterprize  for  her  with  the  ai<J  of  the 
United -States  to  accomplish,  than  it  was  for  her  alone  to  extend  her 
empire  into  India  from  China  to  the  Indus,  blessing  the,  inhabitants 
eight  thousand  miles  from  the  governing  power.  If  they  would,  they 
might  more  wisely,  leave  the  increase  of  crime  at  home,  augmenting  as 
as  it  is,  in  spite  of  the  inadequate  moral  culture  and  penal  vigilance 
that  are ^enforced  to  suppress  it,  and  directing  their  combined  endeavors 
to  central  Africa,  do  more  good  in  the  cause  of  humanity,  than  they 
will  ever  find  to  accomplish  by  intermeddling  with  the  slavery  in  these 
Confederate  States.  In  that  benighted  region,  they  might,  borne  on 
the  whirlwind  of  ambitious  *philanthrophy  and  treading  on  the  storms 
of  war,  succeed  in  erecting  noble  fabrics  of  civilization  and  freedom,  and 
come  off  with  all  the  pride  and  pomp  of  chivalrous  exploits.  She  and 
they  ought  to  remember  that  her  own/VVilberforce  deprecated  the  dark 
dangers  of  immediate  emancipation,  and  hoped  that  slavery  would  wear  out 
gradually  without  the  intervention  of  any  positive  law  or  violent  act. 
She  ought  to  know,  full  well,  that  her  own  more  considerate  writers  de- 
clare now  that  such  manner  of  intervention  will  be,  as  it  always  has 
been  hitherto,  a.  source  of  the  most  heart-rending  and  irremediable  ca- 
lamities. But  I  will  close  the  historic  page,  though  by  having  so  open- 
ed it  a  little,  I  have  only  indulged  freedom  of  speech,  and  no  license  of 
interference  encouraged — will  close  it,  lest  I  may  seem  to  be  willing,  by 
coming  down  the  lapse  of  time  to  more  recent  events  and  to  existing 
evils,  to  forget,  or  not  be  governed  by,  the  lesion  I  would  inculcate,  that 
of  all  wisdom  conducive  to  social  virtue  and  promotion  of  peace  on 
earth,  this  excels,  to  learn  first  to  show  piety  at  home. 

Mr.  President,  I  thought  I  had  finished,  but  find,  on  reviewing  what  I 
have  said,  I  should  invoke  the  patience  of  the  senate  to  let  me  linger 
longer,  the  length  of  a  few  sentences,  about  this  subject  in  which  we  are 
much  interested.  We  have  in  these  states,  a  vast  mass  of  human  beings 
of  two  colors;  the  one  almost  equal  in  numbers  to  the  other.  The  man 
of  the  public  enemy  in  this  war,  who  is  in  chief  authority,  himself  being 
the  judge,  the  black  portion  of  that  mass  is  inferior  to  the  white. 
Whether  in  his  tergiversations,  he  will  continue  to  hold  and  act  to  any 
extent  on  that  concession,  is  not  material,  as  that  inferiority  is  a  fixed 
fact.  We  would  be  doing  violence  to  nature  and  to  experience — we 
would  be  guilty  of  rejecting  superficial*  observation  confirmed  by  physi- 
ological investigation — if  we  did  net  act  on  the  fact  that  the  blacks  are 
inferior  in  their  mental  faculties,  and  so  inferior  as  to  be  incapable  of 
the  sustained  effort  and  the  sedulous  toil,  I  will  not  say,  to  rise  to  the 
dignity  in  the  scale  of  human  existence,  of  knitting  together  a  social 
fabric  embellished  by  order,  law  and  art,  but  even  of  doing  it,  I  will 
say,  in  any  form  of  respectable  consistency. and  endurance.  All  history 
shows  they  cannot,  or  will  not,  anywhere,  produce  a  subsistence,  if  left 
to  themselves  or  not  subjected  to  the  terrors  of  military  coercion  or  the 
milder  compulsion  of  a  civil  master.  As  I  have  already  said,  all  that  is 
well  known  to  us.  What  is  needed  With  us,  is  that  the  metal  be  extract- 
ed from  the  ore,  out  of  the  many  views  applicable  to  that  vast  mass  of 
humanity,  as  to  the  principles  by  which  its  diverse  parts  shall  be  gov- 


24 

erned.  In  other  words,  what  has  been  needed  is  an  accurately  ascer- 
tained'collect  of  principles  applicable  to  negro  slavery,  to  be  the  guide 
of  popular  demonstrations  and  of  authorized  legislation  and  consistent 
adjudication.  As  has  been  well  said  by  another,  all  the  iron  ore  from 
any  Swedish  mine,  would  not  hew  a  block,  or  split  a  plank,  or  cut  a  mor- 
tice,  until  it  was  wrought  into  a  hatchet,  a  saw,  or  chisel.  Just  so  it  is, 
and  that  is  all,  (for  I  suggest  no  new  principle,  but  only  propose  to  ap- 
ply certain  old  ones.)  as  to  this  proceeding  I  am  inviting  my  country  to 
accept  as  the  guiding  and  governing  collect  of  principles  to  constitute 
the  concentrated  sentiment.  It  is  the  process  by  which  the  metal  is  ex- 
tracted from  the  ore,  and  it  is  the  product  extracted.  It  is  a  small  quan- 
tity of  metal  from  a  huge  and  confused  mass  of  ore.  It  is  intended  to 
be  the  fine  gold  refined.  It  is,  as  I  apprehended,  the  exact  truth,  ex- 
tracted by  much  labor,  as  I  know,  and  it  is"  so  shaped,  as  I  trust,  that 
they  who  are  not  tutored  by  a  lifetime  of  study,  may  handle  it  with  suc- 
cess. It  is,  as  far  as  I  can  make  it,  a  polished  sword,  which  if  a  master 
workman  had  addressed  his  attention  to  the  labor,  might  have  been  pro- 
duced a  perfect  pattern  and  of  the  best  tempered  steel — for  the  handle 
of  which,  imperfect  as  it  has  proceeded  from  my  hands,  whilst  inviting 
others  to  improve  it,  I  desire  to  secure  the  approving  judgment  of  these 
slavch-'Ming  states  :  and  for  its  scabbard,  their  affections.  When  drawn, 
it  will  be  a  two-edged  Bword,  Buited  to  guard  against  an  internal  as  well 
as  a  foreign  foe.  I  a  Btonewith  which  I  wish  this  state  becoming  the 
Bling,  to  slay  the  Goliah  of  the  opposition  to  our  safety  and  peace;  so 
that  all  the  l  .irtji  may  know  that  there  is  a  God  in  whose  merciful  hand 
is  the  combination  of  events,  and  who  is  the  arbiter  of  this  political 
problem  of  momentous 

Senators,  con  ider  if  it  will  not  be  creditable  to  this  noble  old  state 
at 'this  time  and  hereafter,  to  adopt  the  proceeding  proposed.  Its  adop- 
tion will,  in  my  judgment  which  I  have  come  to  after  a  thorough  exami- 
nation with  all  the  Lights  the  past  has  shed,  whilst  at  first  from  sympathy 
for  the  slave  I  was  disinclined  to  it.  and  not  being  now,  nor  desiring 
ever  again  to  be,  the  owner  of  slaves — its  adoption,  I  say,  in  my  judg- 
ment bo  formed,  is  well  calculated,  ;is  yet,  to  ensure  the  happiness  of  the 
masters  and*of  the  Bubjects  of  the  mild  bondage,  by  fixing  the  flicker- 
ing justification  of  the  owners  and  of  the  obedience  of  the  owned,  and 
the  philanthropic  wisdom  of  forbearance  by  ;ill  outsiders,  on  fair  princi- 
ples that  have  withstood  and  cau  withstand  the  scrutiny  of  statesman- 
ship. lie_\  on,!  the  range  of  the  conservative  supremacy  of  that  principle 
of  property  by  the  whites  in  the  blacks,  all  experience  has  shown  only 
failures  of  experiment  and  carnivals  of  crime.  When  our  arms. in  this 
war  for  its  defence  shall  wear  the  divine  crown  of  success,  though  dark 
and  dnary  be  the  night  of  the  struggle,  if  this  doctrine  is  established 
a-  the  public  Bentiment  of  these  states,  their  Confederacy  will,  in  the 
sky  of  human  existence,  and  in  the  field  of  historic  fame  in  the  future, 
be  a  constellation  emitting  an  inextinguishable  light  to  guide  mankind 
to  higher  elevations,  than  itself  attained  to.  Let  me  not  be  misunder- 
stood. I  do  not  claim  that  our  Confederacy  in  the  safeguard  of  prin- 
which  1  propose^  will  be  co-extensive  with  time.  I  know  how  one 
form  has  upset  and  swept  over  another.     I  am  aware  that  nigh  the  close 


25 

of  the  last  century,  it  was  written,  by  a  consent  unbroken  by  any  voice 
in  that  country,  over  the  principal  archway  in  the  Tuilleries  :  "  Monar- 
chy is  abolished,  and  will  never  be  restored."  No,  I  do  not  speak  ex- 
ceeding the  truth.  If  you  imagine  I  do,  then  show  me  any  great  truth 
once  expressed,  that  has  perished.  The  glory  of  the  states  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  though  they  are  fallen  from  their  high  advances,  is  not  as  if 
it  never  was.  Its  lustre  is  yet  on  the  cliffs  of  time.  It  is  this,  I  say, 
that  the  light  of  any  example  of  human  government — of  ours,  if  con- 
served by  the  application  and  ingraftment  of  right  principles — the  an- 
chor of  which  is  cast  in  the  interests  of  christian  civilization,  however 
often  its  material  fabric  may  be  changed — will  not  go  ont,  though  thick 
shades  of  retrogradation  may  come  over  it  for  a  season ;  and  that  each 
succeeding  effort  at  amelioration  of  the  conditions  of  men,  will  gather 
the  glow  of  its  precursor,  until  a  system,  conservative  and  peaceful,  regu- 
lar and  perfect,  by  the  resistless  energy  of  the  moral  law,  shall  encircle 
all  on  earth. 

"  Fond,  impious  man,  think'st  thou  yon  sanguine  cloud, 
Raised  by  thy  breath,  hath  quenched  the  orb  of  day? 
To-morrow  he  repairs  the  golden  flood, 
And  warms  the  nations  with  redoubled  ray." 

Some  one,  senators,  peradventure  may  inquire,  why,  when  negro 
slavery  in  these  states  is  in  the  severest  ordeal,  and  the  most  likely  to 
be  successful  for  its  extinction,  it  has  ever  been  subjected  to,  should  an 
aspiring  effort  be  made  to  sustain  it  ?  If  all  that  be  so,  that  it'is  oh  the 
eve  of  being  extinguished,  which  I  do  not  believe,  still  the  energy  and 
anguish  of  the  effort  to  defend  it,  might  aptly  be  compared  to  the  last 
loving  embrace  of  parting  friends.  Though  it  be  destined  to  fail  for  a 
time,  I  would  nevertheless  throw  about  its  fall  the  last  radiance  of  a 
resolute  vindication  of  the  principles  on  which  it  has  been  maintained. 


On  motion,  by  Mr.  Dickinson,  the  preamble  and  resolution  were  refer- 
red to  the  committee  on  confederate  relations.  In  a  few  days  thereafter, 
the  committee  reported  back  the  same,  with  a  recommendation  that  the 
proposed  declaration  be  not  adopted,  because  forsooth,  says  the  report, 
44  the  ordinary  legislature  cannot  control  a  convention  ;"  as  if  there  was 
a  proposition  to  that  effect  embraced  in  the  preamble  or  the  resolution  ! 
And  thereupon,  the  report  of  the  committee,  on  motion  by  Mr.  C,  was 
laid  on  the  table  to  afford  time  for  reflection. 


2G 


Mr.  Collier  s  peace  proposition. 

Although  the  connection  between  the  subject  of  the  foregoing  re- 
marks and  senator  Collier's  peace  proposition,  is  remote,  he  thinks  it 
proper  to  here  reproduce  the  latter,  which  is  annexed.  He  has  the  "man- 
liness" to  reproduce  that  proposition,  notwithstanding  the  attempted 
objurgation  of  its  author,  by  the  parasite  "  Sentinel,"  and  the  snoring 
-dissent  of  other  sentinels  asleep  on  the  crumbling  crust  of  a  raging  vol- 
cano— asleep,  as  dissenting  sentinels  must  be,  amid  the  crackling  blaze 
of  a  war,  the  prosecution  of  which  by  the  public  enemy  of  the  south,  is 
in  conflict  with  every  interest  of  humanity,  the  world  over.  He  repro- 
duces that  proposition  in  this  form,  before  the  living  age,  to  the  end,  and 
for  this,  among  other  reasons,  that  such  multiplication  of  printed  copies 
of  it,  may  a  fiord  it  so  much  opportunity  to  reach  that  posterity  whom 
the  lapse  of  time  shall  acquit  of  passionate  prejudice — a  prejudice 
which  derives  no  nutriment  from  that  moral  courage?  which  is  self-reli- 
ant ami  fails  not  to  act  with  outright  energy,  from  fear  of  being  mis- 
represented. The  proposition  was  and  is  and  shall  be  to  treat  with  co- 
equal states  recently  in  the  Union,  and  not  with  the  usurper,  who  is 
constraining  them  to  contribute  reluctantly  to  coerce  a  reunion  territo- 
rially, with  a  knowledge  that  he  cannot  secure  it  in  the  affections  of  the 

ilr  now  inhabiting  the  two  sections.  The  very  impracticability  of 
this  ])<acc  pi  :i,  in  the  event  it  should  prove  to  be  impracticable, 

would  but  demonstrate  to  the  usurper's  subjects  and  to  the  foreign  na- 
tions, that  the  great  crime  of  continuing  so  ruinous  a  war,  is  theirs,  not 
ours.  The  rejection  of  the  proposition  by  these  states,  should  it  reach 
them,  J  I  show  more  clearly  to  the  friends  of  peace  among  them, 

to  whom  the  blame  for  continuing  the  war  should  attach  ;  whilst  the  ac- 
ceptance and  success   of  the  proposition  would  crown  the  struggle  with 
i    gild  the   retiring   clouds   of  war  with  its  richer 
hould  the  proposition  not  be  allowed  by  the  usurper  to  reach 
them  or  be  fairly  considered  and  decided  on  by  them,  the  extent  of  the 
iiiiv  he  is  exercising  over  them  would  be  thereby  made  the  more 
manifest.     The  idea   that  war   must    rage  until   one  belligerent  or  the 
her  is  exhausted,  and  that  it  is  in  derogation  of  the  dignity  of  either 
to  stand  forth  and  strive  to   assert  with  success,  or  to  fail  in  asserting, 
that,  th<  -iiall  no  longer  devour,  is  as  erroneous  to  my  mind  and 

as  hateful  to  my  instincts,  as  the  other  idea,  which  is  the  main  prop  of 
monarchy,  and  is  fast   getting  to  be  fashionable,  that,  as  a  citizen  may 

conscribed  into  the  army,  all  his  property  may  be  impressed  by  the 
government,  and  his  immediate  family  be  left  destitute.  Hateful  ty- 
ranny that  is,  and  frustrates  republican  freedom. 


*  27 

Extract  from  Virginia  Senate  Journal,  September  9,  1863,  pp.  26-27. 

Mr.  Collier  submitted  the  following  preamble  and  resolutions,  which 
lie  over  under  the  rules  : 

"Whereas,  the  constitution  of  the  federal  Union  of  the  late  United 
States,  was  established  by  the  sovereign  separate  action  of  the  nine 
states  by  which  it  was  first  formed,  and  the  number  of  the  United  States 
was  afterwards,  from  time  to  time  enlarged  by  the  admission  of  other 
states,  separately:  and  whereas,  that  constitution  failed  to  incorporate 
or  indicate  any  method  by  which  any  one  or  more  of  the  states  might 
peaceably  retire  from  the  obligations  of  federal  duty  imposed  by  it  on 
each  to  every  other  state  in  the  Union:  and  whereas,  it  is  consistent 
with  the  republican  creed,  on  Avhich  the  whole  complex  system  is  found- 
ed, that  a  majority  of  the  states  might  peacefully  disannul  the  compact 
as  to  any  party  to  it :  and  whereas,  a  conjuncture  in  the  federal  relations 
of  the  United  States,  did  arise  in  1861,  then  culminating  into  a  crisis, 
in  which  certain  of  the  slaveholding  states,  by  conventional  action  of 
their  several  sovereign  people,  in  solemn  form,  declared  and  promulged 
their  desire  and  determination  no  longer  to  yield  obedience  to  the  con- 
stitution and  lajfc  of  that  federal  Union,  as  authoritative  over  them,  in 
that  specific  form:  and  whereas,  the  executive  branch  of  that  govern- 
ment, with  the  occasional  sanction  of  the  federal  legislature,  in  the  pro- 
gress of  belligerent  events,  has  proceeded  by  force  of  arms  to  attempt 
to  execute  its  laws  within  the  disaffected  states,  without  applying  to  the 
states  remaining  in  the  Union,  to  ascertain  whether  they  would  agree 
that  the  disaffected  states  might  depart  in  peace :  and  whereas,  these 
disaffected  states  are  not,  nor  ever  were,  under  any  obligation  to  the 
general  government,  except  such  as  was  self-imposed  and  explicitly  de- 
fined in  concert  and  comity  with  the  other  states,  each  being  a  contract- 
ing party  with  every  other,  in  a  compact  to  which  there  was  and  is  no 
A  pther  party :  and  whereas,  the  war  waged  on  these  states,  by  that  gene- 
.'  ^ral  government  which  is  the  creature  of  the  states  who  armed  it  with 
power  deemed  adequate  to  the  common  protection  of  them  all,  no  less 
in  their  reserved  rights,  than  in  their  foreign  relations — a  war  into 
which  those  states  were  thus  precipitated — is  yet  being  prosecuted  with 
aspiring  pre-eminence  of  craft  and  crime,  although  some  of.  them  by 
large  and  earnest  expressions  of  public  or  party  opinion  within  their 
borders,  have  shown  that  they  are  constrained  to  contribute  to  its  prose- 
cution, very  much  against  their  will  and  to  their  own  great  detriment: 
and  whereas,  any  appropriate  means,  the  timely  use  of  which  was  omit- 
ted in  the  outset  to  prevent  the  war,  is  not  only  a,  proper  resort  in  its 
progress,  but  is  dictated  and  constrained  to  by  all  the  sanctions  of.  chris- 
tian civilization: 

1..  Resolved,  therefore,  by  the  general  assembly  of  Virginia,  That 
three  commissioners  from  this  state  to  each  of  the  states  remaining  in 
the  Union,  be  appointed  by.  the  joint  vote  of  the  two  houses  of  the 
general  assembly,  whose  duty  it  shall  be,  under  instructions  to  be  pre- 
pared by  the  governor  of  this  state,  and  approved  by  the  concurrent 
vote  of  each  house  of  the  general  assembly,  to  repair  forthwith  to  the 
.capitol  of  each  of  the  states  that  remain  in  that  Union,  and  make  known 


28 


to  the  governor  of  each,  that  the  state  of  Virginia,  appealing  from  the 
usurped  power  of  the  men  who  are  charged  with  administering  the  gov- 
ernment of  that  Union,  exercised  in  the  conduct  of  this  war,  demands 
of  those  states  with  whom  she  contracted,  that  they  severally  will,  by 
the  ballot  box,  as  the  Union  was  formed  and  enlarged,  decide,  as  sol- 
emnly and  formally  as  they  did  in  that  transaction,  whether  they  will 
cansent  that  she  be  allowed  thenceforth  to  be  separated  from  them  in 
peace  :  provided,  however,  that  this  state  having  joined  other  states  in 
forming  a  Confederacy,  and  with  a  view  to  regard  scrupulously  the  obli- 
gations contracted  with  her  confederates,  shall  not  proceed  to  carry  this 
proceeding  into  full  execution,  unless  and  until  a  majority  of  them  shall 
agree  to 'do-act  in.  instituting  alike  commission:  and,  to  this  end,  the 
governor  is  authorized  to  communicate  this  proceeding  to  the  governor 
of  each  of  the  Confederate  States,  inviting  their  several  concurrence 
and  co-a6tion  in  this  prpposed  mission  to  the  late  co-states  ;  but  not  to 
the  government  of  that  Union,  because  it  was  and  is  the  creature  of  the 
.  and  should  be  their  servant,  to  do  their  will  when  certainly  as- 
certained. 

•J.  Resolved,  as  the  opinion  of  this  general  a ssemblv.  Thus  under- 
taking to  speak  and  to  act  for  the  sow-reign  pcopleof  \Wginia,  although 
we  are  but  the  ordinary  legislature  thereof,  that  in  ease  the  men  who 
are  charged  with  administering  the  government  of  the  United  State^ 
shall  refuse  our  commissioners  transit  and  sojourn  into  and  in  those 
8,  for  the  exclusive  purposes  of  this  mission,  which  are  avowed, 
such  failure  of  our  effort  will  but  demonstrate  to  them  the  fearful  extent 
r<i'  absolute  rule  over  them  by  bhosfe  men,  and  make  our  effort  a  more 
memorable  instance  of  patriotic  exertion  and  peaceful  magnanimity  dis- 
played in  a  well-meant  attempt  to  cultivate  peace  on  earth  and  good 
\sill  among  men. 

3.  Ke-ohcd,  That  in  initiating  this  mission  for  peace,  this  general  as 
sembly  doth  unequivocally  disavow  any  desire  or  design  or  willingne ._' 
that  the  Confederate  administration  shall  relax  its  exertions  or  the  peO 
ph  theirs,  to  advance  and  •  •-taMMi  the  cause  to  which  wc  arc  all  pledg- 
ed in  our  fortunes  and  by  our  virtues  to  the  utmost  of  our  talents  to  use 
them  in  support  of  the  separate  independence  of  these  states. 


